Chile director plans to make film based on the trials and tribulations faced by trapped miners in Chile
Chile director plans to make film based on the trials and tribulations faced by trapped miners in Chile
During the months of digging it will take to rescue the trapped miners in Chile, director Rodrigo Ortuzar will be shaping his film about the underground tale of despair and rebirth he has already aptly titled The 33.
"We have to wait for the ending, but what's already happened up to now is incredible... There's such a great story to tell here," Ortuzar said in an interview.
"My idea is to craft a story focusing on this confinement and at the same time on the rebirth the miners will go through once they come to the surface."
He has already come up with a poster for the movie featuring a lone miner walking down a gloomy tunnel toward a distant patch of light, under the caption: based on a true story.
Ortuzar even has a tentative opening date for the film, the second half of 2012.
Cameras are already rolling among the tents the families of the trapped miners pitched in the bone-dry Atacama desert outside the San Jose mine after the August 5 collapse that changed their lives.
u00a0
They call it Camp Hope.
"We're filming at the camp as a way of observing what goes on there so we can recreate it later," said Ortuzar.
He is unsure the camp images will make the final cut but certain in his intention, "we want to mix fiction with reality."
Rescue operators estimate it will take three to four months for any of the three drilling machines to open a shaft big enough to extract the miners from their shelter, 700 metres (2,300 feet) below ground.
"We've got a great opportunity to create and develop a script during that time," said Ortuzar. Camp Hope has taken on an unusual life of its own.
No money is exchanged, yet there is no shortage of goods. It even includes a makeshift jail.
"This is an incredible story. They're trapped at a depth of 700 metres and that's going to cause them a life change. A mini-society has cropped up in the meantime. It's all so unbelievable," he added.
"When the mining accident happened, I said, 'here we've got yet another good story," he said.
"It's going to be called The 33 because the number is almost mystical: there are 33 miners and 33 were the letters in the message they sent up telling the world they were alive."
Did you know?
He will donate all the takings of the movie to an education fund that will be set up for the children of the trapped miners
ADVERTISEMENT
Subscribe today by clicking the link and stay updated with the latest news!" Click here!
