Greenwich Entertainment has acquired of U.S. and Canadian distribution rights to “Buried: The 1982 Alpine Meadows Avalanche”. The documentary premiered at the Telluride’s Mountainfilm festival where it won the Audience Award, the first of several subsequent festival awards.
The film, which tells the gripping account of the deadliest avalanche in US ski resort history, opens in New York City, San Francisco, and Northern California theaters on September 23rd and expands to subsequent markets the following weeks during a 45 day exclusive theatrical window. TVOD/EST and DVD begin on November 8, 2022.
“Buried” was produced by Jared Drake and Steven Siig and executive produced by Academy Award-winning producer Evan Hayes (Free Solo) of Ace Content, Oscar winner Michael Sugar (Spotlight) and eight-time Emmy nominee David Hillman (The Tipping Point) of Sugar23, Mark Gogolewski and Shannon Houchins. Greenwich’s co-president Edward Arentz negotiated the acquisition with the filmmakers. Rocket Science is handling international sales.
“Essential viewing for skiers but all audiences – skiers and non-skiers alike – will find Buried a riveting account of a natural disaster, not only in the details of the avalanche itself and subsequent rescue efforts, but on how the disaster effected people in the years following and became a dividing line in time for the survivors and their community” says Greenwich’s Arentz.
Here’s the film’s official synopsis:
In the early 1980’s, the ski patrol at the Alpine Meadows ski resort were the undisputed gods of winter in the mountain hamlet of Lake Tahoe, California. Their esprit de corps was centered around keeping the skiing public safe, primarily through avalanche control and largely through triggering slides with explosives. For this group and the others caught up in these events, the innocent era of seemingly endless sun drenched powder and apres-ski parties would come to a sudden and harrowing close on March 31st, 1982.
15.5 feet of snow would fall at Lake Tahoe between March 27 and April 8, 1982 (which still ranks as the greatest single snowstorm total on record for this area). Given the avalanche danger, the ski patrol shut operations down on March 31st but that afternoon without warning, millions of pounds of snow would hurtle down the side of the mountain engulfing the resort’s base area and burying the parking lot. The sheer scale of the wreckage was staggering but for the patrol team every passing second was precious, as it was soon determined that eight people were buried in the slide – co-workers, friends, family.
40 years have passed since this colossal weather disaster, with lives forever changed and the stories of that tragedy passing into local lore. BURIED captures the intense drama of that day, and the days of suspense, grief and hope that followed along with the long legacy of post-traumatic stress on the survivors and community. The story is about the avalanche disaster and rescue but it also explores the broader themes of trauma and mental health, resilience and healing, and ultimately about the relationship between humans and the forces of nature we seek to control.
