TPI Launches New Docu-Drama "RUN OR DIE" at MIPTV

International production and distribution company TPI brings to Cannes an intriguing new docu-drama titled "Run or Die: The Fernando Araujo Story."

Run or Die: The Fernando Araujo Story

Over the last decade, no country has been terrorized more by kidnappings than Colombia. Guerillas from the FARC, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, have abducted thousands of people into the jungle - where escape was considered impossible and rescue missions always failed.

But on the morning of January 5, 2007, everything changed.

A ragged, gaunt and sunburned man staggered out of the Montes de Maria wilderness and identified himself as Fernando Araujo, the long-lost former minister of economic development, who was kidnapped by the FARC in December, 2000. His near-miraculous escape made headlines around the world because Fernando was the first high-profile hostage to break free from the FARC and live to tell about it. Within weeks of his homecoming, Fernando Araujo made the headlines again when he was appointed foreign minister of Colombia and began traveling the world to advocate for the freedom of hostages everywhere.

Now, after two years in the making, TPI brings to the screen "Run or Die: The Fernando Araujo Story", a true-life tale of kidnapping, survival, betrayal, escape, and triumph.

Filmed in high definition on location in Cartagena, Bogota and in the jungles of northern Colombia, "Run or Die" is a 90-minute docudrama narrated, in part, by Fernando Araujo himself, with dramatic recreations of his shocking abduction, brutal captivity, and harrowing escape from FARC guerillas.

Directed by Bogota filmmaker Klych Lopez, a winner of TNT's "Project 48" competition, "Run or Die" features Colombian actor Hernan Lopez, as Fernando Araujo. Maria Adelaida Puerta, well-known for her leading role in the hit telenovela series "Sin Tetas No Hay Paraiso", portrays Monica, the wife of Fernando who agonizes over the future of her marriage to a man who may never return home alive.

To help make the rescue and escape reenactments as authentic as possible, TPI obtained the cooperation of the Colombian armed forces who supplied combat helicopters, authentic FARC equipment and uniforms, technical advisors, military extras and a detachment of the same special commandos who attacked Fernando's FARC camp and enabled him to make his dramatic escape.