The Colombian government is collaborating with British producer Simon Chinn to make a documentary about the four indigenous minors who survived for 40 days in the Amazon jungle after a plane crash, the president announced Friday. President Gustavo Petro revealed that he had an initial meeting with Simon Chinn, who has won two Academy Awards for his documentaries “Man on Wire” (2008) and “Searching for Sugar Man” (2012). Petro mentioned that the family and indigenous communities must be consulted, in addition to reviewing the footage archives, in order to carry out the production.
The president shared a photo in which he appears with Simon Chinn, Guillermo Galdós, correspondent of the British television channel Channel 4, and Hollman Morris, in charge of the Colombian state-owned RTVC. According to Petro, RTVC will partner with the production company Lightbox, founded by Chinn, to tell the story of “Operation Hope,” in which more than 100 military and indigenous explorers collaborated to find the children in a vast jungle area.
Simon Chinn thanked President Petro and expressed his honor to participate in the making of the documentary about this inspiring story through his Twitter account.
The small plane in which the children were traveling with their mother and three adults crashed on May 1 in a remote area between the departments of Guaviare and Caquetá in the south of the country. All the adults died, and their bodies were found by the military 15 days later. The discovery of the children’s belongings near the aircraft triggered an intense search involving special forces of the Armed Forces and indigenous spiritual guides. Finally, rescuers were guided to a point in the jungle where they found the siblings on June 9. The children were in a makeshift shelter made of leaves, weakened by a lack of food and dehydrated.
The children are recovering satisfactorily at the Central Military Hospital in Bogota, showing improved appetite, weight gain, and adequate food tolerance, according to the most recent report from the medical center.
In addition, a search is underway to find Wilson, an army rescue dog who allegedly made contact with the brothers days before their rescue but was lost during the search operations. About 70 soldiers are in the area trying to locate this courageous six-year-old Belgian Malinois Shepherd. More than 100,000 people have signed a petition on the change.org platform to urge the government not to abandon efforts to find the dog.