Society of the Snow (La Sociedad de la Nieve) swept all the big awards at the Platino Awards, which took place Saturday, April 20th at the Gran Tlachco Theater in Riviera Maya, Mexico. The movie, which tells the real-life story of the crash of the Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571 in the Andes in 1972, won six awards in total, and two audience awards.
On a night when Argentinian actress Cecilia Roth was honored with a Lifetime Achievement Award, and where many of the winners remarked on the cultural situation in Argentina, Society of the Snow filmmaker Juan Antonio Bayona said during his speech after winning the award for Best Director: “Argentina, we are here standing by your side, you’re not alone.”
The movie also won Best Fiction Film, Best Male Performance (Enzo Vogrincic), Best Editing, Best Photography Direction, and Best Sound Direction on top of Bayona’s Best Directing win, for a total of 6 awards, and most of the major ones. Fans also voted Society of the Snow as the Best Fiction Film and Enzo Vogrincic as the Best Male Performance in the audience awards.
Society of the Snow (La Sociedad de la Nieve) has become a critical and commercial success since its debut on Netflix, becoming the most popular Spanish-language movie on the streaming platform. But the road from conception to success wasn’t always guaranteed, with director Juan Antonio Bayona confirming in a panel about the movie it took him 10 years to get the movie made the way he wanted because he insisted it needed to be made in Spanish and the budget for movies made in Spanish isn’t always there.
Now, all of these years later, Society of the Snow (La Sociedad de la Nieve) has garnered the biggest recognition from the Spanish-speaking film community at the Platino Awards. Mission accomplished.