Oscar -winner Chai Vasarhelyi talks about Nat Geo Doc ‘Lost in the Jungle’

In “Lost in The Jungle”, Oscar winners Jimmy Chin and Chai Vasarhelyi (“Free Solo”) worked together with Colombian filmmaker Juan Camilo Cruz to tell the story of four native brothers and sisters, aged 13, 9, 5 and 11 months. Mucutuy and the pilot of the plane.

The film, which premiered last month at the Telluride Film Festival, is one of the two 2025 Nat Geo documentaries directed by Chin and Vasarhelyi. They also have ‘Love + War’, about combat photographer Lynsey Addario, who is currently on the Camden Intl Scruck. Film festival.

“Lost in The Jungle” is the third documentary about the Lesly, Soleiny, Tien and Cristin Mucutuy of the brothers and sisters, the wonderful survival story of Cristin. Last year Netflix released ‘The Lost Children’ and ‘Operation Hope – The Children Lost in the Amazon’ was released on TVOD. But “Lost in The Jungle” stands out because Chin, Vasarhelyi and Cruz have guaranteed the rights to the story of the Mucutuy brothers and sisters. Not only do the children appear in “Lost in the Jungle”, but they are also interviewed.

“It was very important for me to enable the children to tell their story in their own words, and that meant that they jump and wait through many hoops, and bring many different interests and different parties together,” says Vasarhelyi.

Variety Speaked with Vasarhelyi and Cruz about ‘Lost in the Jungle’, who premiered on National Geographic on 12 September and streams on Disney+ and Hulu 13 September.

In addition to the mucous membrane children, the film contains interviews with the local indigenous tribes and the Colombian military commands that the children found, as well as Colombian President Gustavo Petro and Magdalena Mucutuy’s ex-partner, family and friends of Mucutuy. How did you get such an extraordinary access?

Vasarhelyi: It was probably the most complicated film I have ever made in the field of access.

Cruz: When we started the story, we discovered more and more characters and how deep the story went. So that is why we have such a choir of different voices in the film. That took a lot of effort, energy and skills to get it all in place.

Was it difficult to interview the children about one of the most traumatic times in their lives?

Cruz: We approached it with extreme respect and with full authorization of the families and the organization that took care of the children after the tragic events took place. (They had) psychological support (during the interviews), and we also had our own team, which gave us a lot of information about the best way to do the interviews and the best way to approach the children. I think giving (the children) the opportunity to have their story, gave them the voice they didn’t have for so long.

In the DOC it is clear that the Mucutuy children and their mother were dealing with considerable financial problems. You both benefit from their story. Are the children compensated because they have given you the rights to their story?

Vasarhelyi: Yes. Naturally. We have set up a confidence for the children and compensated them for their rights, because it is fair. Especially for this film, the children who tell the story in their own words, I hope, will be a powerful thing for them in their lives and also protect them in one way or another.

In addition to talking heads, archive images and re -enactments, you used animation to tell parts of the story. In particular, the animation was used while the children explained how they spent their days in the jungle. How did you decide to use animation to tell that part of the story?

Vasarhelyi: I think animation can often be manipulative, but I thought this idea of ​​these line drawings would focus on both the actual words that were the real words that were said by the children, and also allow us to try to call the audience what it should have been like for these indigenous children in the jungle.

There are various re -enactment sequencies in the doc that involves the indigenous rescue team and the Colombian military rescue team. They did not feel like re -enactment sequencies. I felt that I was looking at archive images. How did you make it look so real?

Cruz: We had the luxury to return the real people with us to the Amazon. The native native are very accurate in their stories. They don’t want to lie, and the army is also very strict. So actually every situation we actually recreate was whole, very, very close to the reality of how it happened. You know about the backgrounds, the actions and how they were actually placed in certain situations.