Buried

Alpine Meadows is a skiing area located on the border of California and Nevada where the Winter Olympics took place in 1960. This only increased the amount of tourism in the region, one that was, and still is, notorious for its snowstorms and avalanches. In 1982, one of these avalanches engulfed many of the skiing amenities and took the lives of seven people.

In Buried, Jared Drake and Steven Siig make a detailed reconstruction of the events on that fatal day with the aid of eye witnesses, friends and colleagues who lost loved ones, as well as the weather presenter who was working at the time. Many are unable to hold back a tear. But Buried also shows the progress that has been made in weather forecasting since then, in dealing with avalanches (using explosives as a precautionary measure!) and in the prevention of disasters such as this. The question of guilt and the lawsuits that followed are also discussed. With its clever use of the camera and its music and sound, it hardly comes as a surprise that Buried has already won various international awards.