The book recalls and reflects on Quim Vives personal journey as a set photographer during the filming of the movie La Sociedad de la Nieve, directed by Juan Antonio Bayona and inspired by the book of the same name by Pablo Vierci, which narrates the tragic accident of Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571, which occurred on October 13, 1972.
The film was produced by Belén Atienza, Sandra Hermida and Juan Antonio Bayona for the Netflix platform, presented internationally at the closing of the last edition of the Venice Film Festival and is currently included in the Shortlist for the Academy Awards in four categories, including Best Foreign Film.
October 13th, 1972: Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571, a chartered plane carrying 45 passengers and crew from Uruguay, to Chile, crashed high in the inhospitable Andes. Search and rescue attempts were abandoned after eight days. But, in what became known as “the Miracle of the Andes”, 16 passengers survived, having undergone extreme temperatures, avalanches and resorting to cannibalism out of desperation. Eventually two young survivors of the crash embarked on a mission to reach Chile across the vast mountains, resulting in the eventual rescue over two months later.
“In the Society of Snow escapes definition and defies categories. Is this a book of a film? A reconstruction? A deconstruction? An allegory of fragile truth and memory? Post-documentary? An act of historical redemption or catharsis? A work of fiction, or a detective story? In an era in which there are no fixed ways to represent reality or know the past, In the Society of Snow cuts its own unique path through the confusion, to present a rich challenge to the viewer”.
David Campany.