A documentary about a real-life survival story in the Colombian jungle has premiered at the Telluride Film Festival before its arrival on National Geographic and Disney+ in September, Deadline reports. Lost In The Jungle follows the story of four children who survived for 40 days after their plane crashed in the South American wilderness in 2023 and the Indigenous trackers and military special forces members who raced against time to find them.
The documentary is directed by E. Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin, who won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature for Free Solo, and also made a similar rescue doc, The Rescue, and Juan Camilo Cruz, who won an Emmy for Messi’s World Cup: The Rise of a Legend.
The three directors discussed what brought them to the project and their excitement for its release, with Chin explaining,
This story intrigued us from the very first time we heard about it…Working with Juan… allowed us to really showcase incredible details about the rescue and survival like never before. We hope audiences leave as inspired as we were by Lesly and the powerful partnership among the rescue teams.
Vasarhelyi added,
Our work has always been about the raw power of the human spirit-its ability to rise, unite, and overcome. Lost In The Jungle is that spirit in its purest form.
Camilo Cruz further elaborated on how personal the project was for him, saying,
As a Colombian filmmaker, I’m deeply proud to tell a story that honors Indigenous people and the wisdom rooted in their land. Lost In The Jungle is a tribute to the extraordinary courage of four children…For me, their journey is a powerful example of what Colombia can be: When we set aside our differences and come together, we can achieve the impossible. That’s a message the world urgently needs to hear.
Camilo Cruz, Vasarhelyi, and Chin serve as producers on the doc, along with Simon Chinn, Jonathan Chinn, Mark Grieco, Anna Barnes, and Guillermo Galdos, while Carolyn Bernstein, Tim Horsburgh, Josh Braun, Luis Del Valle, and Hollman Morris will executive-produce.
Lost In The Jungle premieres on the National Geographic Channel on September 12th and will be available for streaming the next day, September 13th, on Disney+.
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