Fury as Colombian president lets Hollywood tell miracle jungle survivor kids’ story

A Hollywood race to turn the dramatic rescue of four children after a plane crash deep in the Colombian jungle is causing a bitter fallout between the country’s president and the indigenous group to which the children belong.

The discovery of the four children, aged from 1 to 13, 40 days after a crash which killed all the adults they were traveling with was a worldwide sensation.

But now the Huitoto indigenous group, of which the children were members, has been left furious — by Colombia’s president Gustavo Petro giving his blessing to a Hollywood documentary about the miraculous story of survival.

More than 13 Hollywood production companies have been trying to negotiate with the families of the children to tell their story, according to reports, while Netflix and National Geographic are said to have crews on the ground to produce content.

The children’s grandparents were offered “a substantial contract from a U.S. company, but they rejected it when they saw that it included a clause that granted the company rights in perpetuity,” according to a report in Spain’s El Pais this week.

It said that that lawyers representing the indigenous group have demanded that producers make offers that will benefit the entire community of Araracuara, where the children are from.

But last week Colombia’s President Petro posted a photo to Twitter at a climate summit in Paris with British documentary filmmaker Simon Chinn, a two-time Oscar winner, who is best known for 2008’s “Man on Wire” about Philippe Petit, who walked a tightrope between the World Trade Center’s Twin Towers.

Petro, who has used the rescue to bolster his own political position, said Colombian TV will partner with Chinn’s Lightbox company to tell the story of “Operation Hope,” the name of the 140-person rescue mission that saved them

The story is astonishing: Lesly Mukutuy, 13, helped keep her siblings Soleiny Mucutuy, 9, Tien 4, and Cristin, 1 alive for 40 days in the most hostile after their mother and the two other adults on the plane died.

“Muchas gracias, senor Presidente,” Chinn tweeted in reply. “It’s our great honor…to make the documentary about this inspirational Colombian story.”

Also in the photo, which was taken while the Colombian leader was a delegate at a climate summit in Paris, was the director of television for Colombian state broadcaster RTVC, Hollman Morris and Guillermo Galdos, a South American correspondent for Britain’s Channel 4.

The Hollywood deal prompted anger from indigenous groups, who said they had initially been ignored during the rescue effort.

Many of the members of the rescue operation that hacked through thick jungle searching for the four siblings, ages 1 to 13, after a May 1 plane crash that left their mother and two others dead were indigenous scouts in southern Colombia.

“We express our rejection of the announcement of this documentary production, since the decision was taken unilaterally by the national government, unaware that the search work was carried out by the teams of indigenous peoples from the area and relatives in the beginning, and only later by the military forces,” the National Organization of Indigenous Peoples of the Colombian Amazon said in a public statement.

Lightbox refused to comment.

The frenzy of interest in the children has already seen one documentary broadcast: TMZ Investigates is airing “Miracle Children of the Amazon” on Fox stations and on Hulu.

El Pais reports that Netflix and National Geographic have production teams on the ground in the Amazon.

OPIAC attacked the deals and requested that productions about the children’s rescue should not go forward until the indigenous community, in conjunction with the children’s family could make a decision about who to work with.

The children, who are currently recovering at a military hospital in Bogota are in the custody of Family Welfare, the government’s child protection agency, after reports emerged that their father Manuel Ranoque had allegedly abused them and his wife.

Petro has attempt to defuse tensions with indigenous leaders in the wake of the rescue. On Monday, he handed out 86 medals to the rescuers, praising their work alongside that of Colombia’s military.

“The military with its satellites, and the Indigenous people with their potions — including ayahuasca — and invoking the spirits of the jungle, together, found life,” Petro said during the ceremony in front of the presidential palace in Bogota.

For his part, Petro acknowledged as much last week. “We have to talk with the family, with the Indigenous communities (and) open the archive of images,” he told journalists after his announcement that Colombian TV would work with Chinn and his Lightbox production company.

While many Colombians praised the president for forging the deal with Chinn, others were not so excited about the prospect of Hollywood’s involvement in the project.

“‘Operation Hope?’ Maybe it should be renamed ‘Operation Opportunist,’” posted one Twitter user after Petro’s announcement last week.

With Post Wires