Netflix has released the first trailer for its upcoming documentary into the tragedy on Whakaari / White Island where 22 people were killed and others were left with serious burns.
The Volcano: Rescue From Whakaari, which releases on December 16, is executive produced by Ron Howard and Leonardo di Caprio.
Oscar-nominated filmmaker Rory Kennedy directs and produces the film, which has already screened at AFI and DOC NYC ahead of the three-year anniversary of the tragic natural disaster.
The documentary's official synopsis says the film will be "terrifying and inspiring."
"During a routine sightseeing day-trip to a remote volcanic island, 47 tourists and guides were trapped in the epicenter of a boiling pyroclastic surge of toxic dust and ash. Both terrifying and inspiring, the film uses first-hand accounts to convey the experience of living through such a lethal eruption," it said.
The trailer uses testimony from a number of survivors, along with footage from the day.
"From the description, it was a nice, easy hike," one man is heard saying. "They didn’t make it sound dangerous."
The trailer also uses footage of the explosion, as well as comments from the rescuers involved.
"Doing nothing wasn't an option," one says. "We're going to do it ourselves."
Netflix says the documentary "was done in collaboration with the local community and puts the people who experienced this tragedy first, allowing them to tell their own story, in their own way."
The doco's director Rory Kennedy said he hoped the film would give viewers both an insight into what happened and more about the people involved.
"From the beginning, 'The Volcano' struck me largely as an event: a harrowing, lethal event, an eruption that happened at a specific time on a specific day and set into motion a specific narrative," director Kennedy told Filmmaker Magazine.
"So, from the start, my impulse was to try to render that event with the belief that the characters involved would emerge and define themselves through their relationship to it, through their choices and actions in the face of that eruption.
"Similarly, my hope was that whatever meaning one might extract from that day, it too would come out of absorbing what had happened and spending time with the people involved.
"Given the proliferation of cellphones and video cameras, as well as the fact that this was indeed a tourist activity, I believed there had to be footage that would enable me to stay close to the ground, minute-by-minute, and that by structuring the film that way, the sum total of those minutes would add up to something larger."
The owners of Whakaari Island will face charges relating to the deaths of 22 people during the 2019 eruption.
A judge in Auckland's District Court in October decided the trial would take place in nine months' time.
WorkSafe has laid charges against the island's owner Whakaari Management Limited and its directors Andrew, James and Peter Buttle; GNS Science; the National Emergency Management Agency; White Island Tours Limited; Volcanic Air Safaris Limited; Aerius Limited; Kahu NZ Limited; Inflite Charters Limited; ID Tours New Zealand Limited; and Tauranga Tourism Services Limited.
