Director of The Cave, first film about rescue of trapped Thai soccer team, talks about its focus on the rescue divers

Twelve boys and their coach were pulled from a flooded cave in Thailand in a daring rescue that made headlines and led to a Hollywood scramble to dramatise it

Director Tom Waller talks about the realism of his film, which premieres this weekend, and why he concentrated on the rescuers, some of whom play themselves

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The Cave director Tom Waller talks about the claustrophobic and realistic conditions during the dramatisation of the incredible rescue of the youth soccer team in Thailand. Photo: AFP/Lillian Suwanrumpha

Published: 3:30pm, 4 Oct 2019Updated: 3:42pm, 4 Oct 2019

Their story gripped the world: determined divers racing against time and water to rescue 12 boys and their soccer coach trapped for more than two weeks in a flooded cave deep inside a northern Thai mountain.

The ordeal in late June and early July 2018 had barely ended when filmmakers began their own race to get the nail-biting drama onto cinema screens. The first of those projects will premiere this weekend, when director Tom Waller’s The Cave shows at the Busan Film Festival in South Korea.

The film was shot over three months earlier this year and has been in post-production. The 45-year-old Thai-born, British-raised filmmaker says the epic tale of the Wild Boars soccer team was a story he had to tell.

The boys and their coach entered the Tham Luang cave complex after soccer practice and were quickly trapped by rising floodwater. Despite a massive search, the boys spent nine nights in the cave before they were spotted by an expert diver. It would be another eight days before they were all safe.

The rescued boys and their coach arrive for a press conference in Chiang Rai following their discharge from hospital. Photo: AFP/Lillian Suwanrumpha

Waller was visiting his father in Ireland when he saw television news accounts of the drama. “I thought this would be an amazing story to tell on screen,” he says.