“On October 13, 1972 an Uruguayan plane crashed in the Andean Mountain Range. Forty passengers and five crew members were on board. Some say it was a tragedy. Others call it a miracle. What happens when the world abandons you? When you have no clothes and you’re freezing? When you have no food, and you’re dying? The answer is in the mountain.”

This is the beginning of the movie The Society of the Snow by J. A. Bayona. The film tells the true story of how after a plane crash, 16 members of an Uruguayan rugby team survived 72 days stuck in a mountain at an altitude of approximately 11,500 feet.

As the movie shows, the survivors of the initial plane accident had to face the extreme Andes conditions with no food or provisions for 72 days. After the 10th day in the mountain, they found out the rescue mission was over and they were all presumed dead.

The rest of the film is one of the most breathtaking stories of cooperation and survival instinct in human history. As the weeks passed and starvation set in, the survivors were forced to resort to cannibalism in order to stay alive, eating the bodies of their deceased friends.

Facing the freezing conditions of as low as -22º Fahrenheit, extreme dehydration, and avalanches, the survivors showed an unknown desire to live that made possible this miracle.

Society of the Snow has received two Oscar Nominations for Best International Feature Film and Makeup and Hairstyling.