Films

“Free Solo’s” Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi & Jimmy Chin to Direct Drama Inspired by Thai Cave Rescue

Vasarhelyi: Vanity Fair/YouTube

The filmmakers behind the 2019 Oscar winner for Best Documentary Feature have lined up their next project. “Free Solo” directors Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin will helm Universal and Cavalry Media’s scripted drama inspired by the 2018 Tham Luang cave rescue in Thailand. Deadline broke the news.

The feature will tell the story of the Wild Boar boys soccer team and their coach. The group “became trapped 1,000 meters below the surface by monsoon rains. They were ultimately rescued over the course of three days from July 8-10, 2018. The risks of the harrowing rescue were underscored July 6, when a retired Thai Navy SEAL died in an underwater passage, followed by three SEALs who were hospitalized after their oxygen tanks ran low,” the source summarizes.

Vasarhelyi and Chin’s “Free Solo” chronicled another harrowing journey — rock climber Alex Honnold’s attempt to make history and free solo climb El Capitan. In addition to taking home an Oscar, the critical and commercial success scored six Emmy awards, a BAFTA, and many other honors. The pair also collaborated on “Meru,” a 2015 doc following elite climbers as they attempt to climb Mount Meru.

“My full name is Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi. My friends call me by my middle name, Chai, but when I didn’t include the Elizabeth in film credits, people would just assume I was a man. I’d prefer people understand a woman directed my films, so now I include Elizabeth,” Vasarhelyi told us.


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