***Advanced tickets for the June 21 screening at 6:00 p.m. have sold out.  Standby tickets will be available at the AFI Silver box office approximately 45 minutes prior to showtime.  Tickets are not guaranteed and will be available on a first-come, first-served basis.*** 

The fate of Flight 571 is one of the most astonishing survival stories of our time, immortalized in a bestselling book and Hollywood film. But in this riveting retelling, Gonzalo Arijon gets to the essence of it like no previous account.

In October 1972, a Uruguayan rugby team boarded a plane for Chile. Tragically, the plane never reached its destination. A brutal crash into the Andean Cordillera mountains killed nearly half of the 45 passengers on impact, and others later died from injuries and exposure. Marooned atop a glacial peak, the survivors clung to their only glimmer of hope:  news through a small transistor radio that an extensive rescue mission was underway. But when the search was called off 12 days later, it appeared that all hope was lost.

Miraculously, 16 young men defied all odds and survived for 72 days, despite the most brutal of conditions. How they did so became an international sensation that at first profoundly inspired, then deeply shocked the world.

Master filmmaker Arijon, a childhood friend to several of the survivors, tells the tale through the voices of the survivors themselves, meticulously weaving together rare and unflinching interviews, lyrical recreations and an astonishing present-day reunion at the crash site. While some may think themselves already familiar with this tale from Piers Paul Read’s bestseller Alive! or the 1993 Hollywood screen adaptation, Arijon’s sublime account cuts through the haze of sensationalism and reveals a deeply moving and moral story about the sheer tenacity to live.

—Sky Sitney