Guillermo Calderón, Pablo Larraín Collaborator & ‘Neruda’ Writer, Scripting Miracle Story Of Children Who Survived Plane Crash & 40 Days In Amazon Rainforest
EXCLUSIVE: Guillermo Calderón, one of Latin America’s most respected screenwriters and playwrights, has come aboard to script the miracle true story from last year of four children, including a baby, who survived a plane crash and 40 days in the Amazon Rainforest before being rescued by Colombian special forces.
Calderón is known for his frequent collaborations with acclaimed filmmaker Pablo Larraín, including on well-received movies Neruda, The Club and most recently, El Conde, for which he won the Best Screenplay award at the 2023 Venice Film Festival.
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As we previously told you, Candle Media‘s Exile Content Studios is partnering with Colombian journalist Daniel Coronell and director Gaz Alazraki (Father Of The Bride) on the as-yet untitled Spanish-language project. Alazraki’s recently formed LA and Mexico-based production outfit Maquina Vega, which he set up with former Anonymous Content exec Alisa Tager, is newly aboard as co-producer with Exile.
World media was captivated by the story of the four Colombian children – Lesly, 13; Soleiny, 9; Tien Noriel, 4; and Cristin, 1 – who were found alive in the Amazon after a rescue operation that searched more than 1,600 miles of dense forest.
The children survived the plane crash that killed their mother, the pilot and the only other adult on board, and then got through the dense jungle, alive with jaguars, snakes and mosquitoes, and had to contend with stormy weather and little in the way of food or sustenance.
The plane crashed on May 1, 2023, but there was no sign of the children, who come from the Huitoto Indigenous community. A long search through the inhospitable forest began, and included hundreds of volunteers as well as dozens of military personnel.
It later emerged that the children’s mother had survived for four days but told her children soon before her death to leave her in hope of their own survival.
The film will take guidance from Coronell’s book, which is published by Random House.
Calderón, who made his directorial debut last year on Making It Up, told us: “I’m really excited to be a part of this project. I followed the crisis in the news as it was developing and I was overjoyed when I read the kids had ben finally rescued. The journalist Daniel Coronell wrote a wonderful book about the frantic operation and the complicated life in the Colombian Amazon jungle. It’s our best possible entryway into this story. Working with Gaz Alazraki has been inspiring. He is truly passionate about showing the lost kids at home in the jungle, able to use their people’s ancient knowledge to survive. That’s the core of the story and will to be the soul of the movie. It’s a rare and wonderful opportunity to be a part of such a talented team working to tell this unique, true story about a spark of hope in the depths of South America.”
Director Alazraki told us: “Guillermo’s artistic and commercial sensibilities strike the ideal balance for this universal story about survival, layered with such specific knowledge of the Colombian political context and the cultural dimensions of what helped the Huitoto children survive for 40 days in the Amazon jungle. Guillermo’s contribution to the project is like striking gold.”
Alazraki last year directed the remake of Father Of The Bride for Warner Media and HBO Max with Plan B producing. He is best known for writing and directing the Mexican comedy Nosotros Los Nobles, which became one of Mexico’s highest-grossing films.
Coronell is one of Colombia’s most-read and influential columnists, known for his investigations. In 2009, he was granted the highest award for a TV investigative report by the Fundación Nuevo Periodismo Iberoamericano, as well as an Oxfam Novib/PEN Award. In the U.S., he was president of Univision News for ten years.
Exile’s film and TV projects include HBO Max’s Vgly, a scripted series with Diego Luna as showrunner for Netflix, two shows for Amazon and one for TelevisaUnivision’s Vix in partnership with Breaking Bad producer Mark Johnson.
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