Netflix’s new documentary series Beyond Society (Más Allá de la Sociedad) takes a simple turn: it stops following the Andes survivors of the 1972 plane crash at the moment they are rescued. Instead, it watches what happens after they come home. The series, created by Juan Antonio Bayona and Carlos Torres, picks up where Bayona’s 2023 film Society of the Snow ends. It is a strange move for a director whose earlier work includes A Monster Calls and The Impossible, and it raises a question: what happens to a family when the person who walked out of the mountains is the one who has to explain what happened?
The series had its world premiere at the San Sebastián International Film Festival on September 23. It is a three-part doc, directed by Torres and produced by Bayona, Belén Atienza and Sandra Hermida. It arrives on Netflix on December 18.
Bayona’s Film and the Crash
Society of the Snow tells the story of Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571, which crashed in the Andes Mountains in 1972. Of the 45 people onboard, 16 survived by resorting to cannibalism. The film is Bayona’s account of that ordeal, and it remains the most-watched movie on streaming across all of Europe. The new doc asks a different question: what happened after the rescue?
The Town of Carrasco
The series spans the last 50-plus years in Carrasco, Uruguay, where the families of both the dead and the living have had to co-exist. Bayona described the project’s intent at a press conference held before the premiere in San Sebastián. He said the team wanted to close a long journey.
“Our intention with the series was to go up to the mountain and leave it buried there. We wanted to close a very long but very beautiful journey.”
He added that beyond the film’s ending, there was another kind of survival: returning home and surviving, on the part of the survivors, and surviving the loss of a loved one.
The Rift Between Families
The accident caused a rift between the families of the living and the dead. Some treated the survivors’ return as a celebration. Others saw it as a constant reminder of loss. Torres addressed the difficulty of telling a story that pleases everyone.
“We can’t shy away from difficult stories. We had to understand that we were telling the story of 45 families. You can’t always please everyone, but we had to find the essence of each of their pain, their way of life, and understand that nobody survived everything and nobody died from it, and 54 years later we’re still talking about it.”
Fiction’s Role in Reconciliation
Bayona framed the series as a look at how storytelling itself changed the way people faced the tragedy. He spoke about grief’s personal nature.
“Listening to and understanding the person in front of you, trying to understand why they behaved as they did. Grief is very personal, very subjective. We had to understand how each person manages pain, since pain is also very subjective.”
He added that the reunification between the two sides came about through fiction, little by little, through the passing of the years and the generational change. He said the screening of the film in Montevideo allowed people who had not spoken about the tragedy in 50 years to finally understand each other.
Looking at the Past
Torres offered a broader view of history and media. He said looking at the past is a shock, like a mirror confronting who you have become.
“I’m often asked, what if this tragedy had happened in the age of social media? I think human beings are the same with or without social media. It was 1972 and it was a huge story. I don’t think we make documentaries to give lessons, but sometimes it’s about learning. I imagine you can always learn by looking at how things were handled, and not repeat those same mistakes.”
The Driving Force Behind the Doc
The directors said their goal was to show how fiction has made its way into this story, which they call one of the first media tragedies in their society, since it was covered by the whole world.
“We tried to understand the point of view and behavior of everyone involved in this story over the last 50 years, and doing that was one of the driving forces for us to make this series, to be able to show how fiction has been making its way into this story.”
They told the story hoping that their work could give meaning to the tragedy.
A Timeline of the Project
| Date | Event |
|---|---|
| September 23 | World premiere at the San Sebastián International Film Festival |
| December 18 | Release on Netflix |
What We Make of It
The series is a strange pivot for Bayona, who built his career on horror and drama. His films often ask audiences to confront difficult truths directly. This doc asks something stranger: that the truth of a tragedy might be found not in the event itself, but in how people chose to remember it afterward.
The directors are clear-eyed about the difficulty of their task. They acknowledge that no story can please everyone, and that pain is deeply personal. That honesty is part of what makes the project worth watching. It is a documentary about memory, and memory is always partial.
The series arrives on December 18.
Source material: “Produced by J.A. Bayona, Netflix Documentary Series ‘Beyond Society’ Examines What Happens After the Survivors of the 1972 Andes Plane Crash Return to Uruguay,” Variety.
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