Oscar Winner Chai Vasarhelyi Talks Nat Geo Doc ‘Lost in the Jungle’

In “Lost in the Jungle,” Oscar winners Jimmy Chin and Chai Vasarhelyi (“Free Solo”) teamed with Colombian filmmaker Juan Camilo Cruz to tell the story of four Indigenous siblings, aged 13, 9, 5 and 11 months who managed to stay alive for 40 days in remote part of the Colombian rainforest after the Cessna aircraft they were on crashed and killed their mother, Magdalena Mucutuy, and the plane’s pilot.

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

“Lost in the Jungle” is the third feature-length documentary about the siblings Lesly, Soleiny, Tien and Cristin Mucutuy’s miraculous survival story. 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 secured the rights to the Mucutuy siblings’ story. Not only do the children appear in “Lost in the Jungle,” but they are also interviewed.

“It was very important for me to be able to allow the children to tell their story in their own words, and that meant jumping through a lot of hoops and waiting, and bringing a lot of different interests together and different parties together,” says Vasarhelyi.

Variety spoke to Vasarhelyi and Cruz about “Lost in the Jungle,” which premieres on National Geographic Sept. 12 and streams on Disney+ and Hulu Sept. 13.

In addition to the Mucutuy children, the film includes interviews with the local Indigenous tribes and the Colombian military commandos who found the children, as well as Colombian President Gustavo Petro and Magdalena Mucutuy’s ex-partner, family, and friends. How did you get such extraordinary access?

Vasarhelyi: It was probably the most complicated film I’ve ever made in terms of access.

Cruz: As we were getting into the story, we were discovering more and more characters and how deep the story went. So that’s the reason why we have such a choir of different voices in the film. That took a lot of effort, energy, and skills to get that all in place.

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

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

In the doc, it’s clear that the Mucutuy children and their mother faced significant financial hardship. You are both profiting off their story. Are the children being compensated for giving you the rights to their story?

Vasarhelyi: Yes. Of course. We set up a trust for the children and compensated them for their rights because that’s the fair thing. For this film in particular, the children telling the story in their own words, I hope, will be both an empowering thing for them in their lives and also protect them in some way.

In addition to talking heads, archival footage, and reenactments, you used animation to tell parts of the story. Mainly, 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 that animation can often be manipulative, but I thought this idea of these line drawings would both focus the audience on the actual words, which were the real words, being said by the children, and also allow us to try to conjure for the audience what it must have been like for these Indigenous children to be in the jungle.

There are several reenactment sequences in the doc that involve the Indigenous rescue team and the Colombian military rescue team. They didn’t feel like reenactment sequences. I felt like I was watching archival footage. How did you make it seem so real?

Cruz: We had the luxury to actually have the real people come with us back to the Amazon. The Indigenous are very precise in their storytelling. They don’t want to lie, and the military, as well, is very strict. So actually, every situation we actually recreated was very, very, very close to the reality of how it happened. You know, from the backgrounds, from the actions, and how they were actually positioned in certain situations.