The Hollywood Reporter has an extraordinary exclusive from Gravity co-writer Jonas Cuaron, a companion piece to the film he assisted his father Alfonso in making. It’s shot from the earthbound perspective of the recipient of Sandra Bullock’s character’s distress signal, and it’s a powerful, beautiful seven minutes.
From Seth Abramovich at The Hollywood Reporter:
“The idea for Aningaaq, which follows an Inuit fisherman stationed on a remote fjord in Greenland, occurred to the Cuarons as they were working out the beats for the Gravity screenplay. “It’s this moment where the audience and the character get this hope that Ryan is finally going to be OK,” Jonas, 31, tells THR. “Then you realize that everything gets lost in translation.” Both Cuarons spent time in the glacial region (Alfonso once toyed with setting a movie there) and fell in love with the barren vastness of its frozen wilderness. During one of those visits, Alfonso met a drunken native who would become the basis for the title character, played by Greenland’s Orto Ignatiussen. But it wasn’t until Jonas, on a two-week trek gathering elements for his film, was inspired by the local inhabitants’ profound attachment to their sled dogs that he decided to incorporate that element into the plot.”
What’s striking about the short is that even as Aningaaq is in a place nearly as desolate, empty and deadly as the one Ryan tenuously survives in, he has everything: the dogs he loves, his wife and child, his job. Their conversation is both comical and heartbreaking. It’s a must watch for any fan of the film.
Read more about Aningaaq, a likely Oscar contender for Best Short, at The Hollywood Reporter