Directors Chai Vasarhelyi and Juan Camilo Cruz discuss the incredible true story at the center of their National Geographic documentary Lost in the Jungle.
In 2023, an aircraft carrying seven people crashed in the Colombian jungle. Only four people survived — all children, 13 and under, with the youngest just a baby — but it took 40 days for the Colombian government and indigenous searchers to find the kids.
Directors Jimmy Chin, Chai Vasarhelyi, and Juan Camilo Cruz bring this remarkable story of survival to life in National Geographic’s documentary Lost in the Jungle.
While the story might not be widely known in the United States, Cruz says it was huge when it unfolded in Colombia.
“At the beginning, it was just a smaller story,” says Cruz. “Because it was just the falling of a plane. But when they realized that there were actually four kids lost in the jungle, it was a story that united the whole country.”
After the children were found, Cruz got in contact with the indigenous rescuers to start working on this project and soon connected with Vasarhelyi via their agents.
“It was just after The Rescue [documentary about the Thai soccer team trapped in a cave],” says Vasarhelyi. “Just realizing that a 13-year-old had kept her siblings alive, including an 11-month-old, I was like, there’s more to this story, and I was fascinated.”
Capturing the voices of the many players in the story was a challenge, but the body cam footage from the military proved to be a huge starting point.
“And then the indigenous filmed a little bit,” says Cruz, “but then we had to do some of the reenactments and create different layers and languages to be able to complete the story.”
Cruz and Vasarhelyi had a team that went to the plane crash site, which is practically unreachable, shortly after the rescue to document the space, but most of the reenactments were in a more “realistic” place to shoot a film. After all, they didn’t want to get lost in the jungle themselves.
But how do you tell the story from the children’s perspective? Another layer of the documentary is the animation used to represent the kids.
“The idea was that these line drawings could honor a child’s point of view,” says Vasarhelyi, “like when Lesly giggles with the monkeys; that’s how she sees it. It’s funny and playful. Or even the kind of magical realism of the jungle itself.”
A spiritual and mystical presence, the jungle is a very important character in this story, and the directors believe it played a role in the rescue.
“We approached this movie with a lot of respect to the jungle,” says Cruz. “The grandfathers from the region gave us their blessing, nd once we got into the jungle as a team, the first thing that happened was this blue butterfly flying around the cameras. The jungle is a magical place, and you feel it. It’s a strange and powerful thing. And I truly believe that there was something deeper there that we might not understand, but that when you are in the Amazon and close your eyes and listen to the sounds and feel the energy, you know you are in the middle of something extremely powerful.”
The push and pull between the Colombian military and indigenous rescuers provides added tension in the jungle while they search for the children.
“A lot of different things can be true at once,” says Vasarhelyi. “And it was really important for us to honor these two different belief systems and also look at how they can coexist. And also how people with immense differences, with some effort, can find common ground.”
And the tension between the family of the children’s mother, who died during the crash, and the children’s father, Manuel, adds another layer of urgency.
“The reality is that there were already rumors about the situation with Manuel,” says Cruz. “There was no proof, but even in the search, the military knew about it, but they didn’t say anything because that wasn’t the point at that moment. We got the chance to interview Manuel very fast, and I think that allowed us to have the benefit of doubt, but also to be able to question the possibilities of his having done something wrong with the kids.”
Lost in the Jungle is now streaming on Hulu and Disney+.
