Original title: ‘Lost in the Jungle’ Review: ‘Free Solo’ Directors Capably Tackle a Remarkable Tale of Survival in the Amazon for Nat Geo
Real-life drama doesn’t get much more harrowing, or much more inspiring, than the story at the heart of Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi, Jimmy Chin and Juan Camilo Cruz’s new documentary Lost in the Jungle, which showed at Telluride ahead of its September premiere on National Geographic. In 2023, Indigenous Colombian Lesly Jacobombaire Mucutuy (aged 13 at the time) and siblings Soleiny (9 at the time), Tien (5) and Cristin (under a year) were on a plane headed to Bogota. It crashed somewhere in the Amazon, killing their mother and two other passengers, but the kids were OK. Relatively. Lost in the Jungle The Bottom Line The story is more compelling than the way it’s told. Venue: Telluride Film Festival Airdate: 9 p.m. Friday, September 12 (National Geographic) Directors: Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi, Jimmy Chin and Juan Camilo Cruz 1 hour 36 minutes The Colombian military sent a unit of commandos into the jungle, while regional tribes sent their own search party, all certain that even if the ch