Sara Dosa is a Peabody-winning producer and Indie Spirit Award nominee for documentary director. Her first feature as a director, “The Last Season,” won a Golden Gate Award at its SFIFF 2014 premiere, and was nominated for the Indie Spirit Truer Than Fiction Award. Dosa co-directed an Emmy nominated episode of the Netflix music series “Re-Mastered” and premiered her third feature “The Seer & The Unseen” in 2019. In 2018, DOC NYC named Dosa to the inaugural “40 under 40” class of documentary filmmakers and she was inducted into the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences.
“Fire of Love” is screening at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival, which is running online from January 20-30. More information can be found on the fest’s website.
W&H: Describe the film for us in your own words.
SD: “Fire of Love” is an unexpected love story of two intrepid French scientists, Katia and Maurice Krafft, who died in a volcanic explosion doing the very thing that brought them together: seeking to understand the mystery of volcanoes by capturing the most spectacular imagery ever recorded.
They shot hundreds of hours of footage, thousands of photos, and risked their lives to experience the thrill of the fire. “Fire of Love” playfully interprets the Kraffts’ story and images they left behind, resulting in an archival collage adventure through themes of love, time, the implacable unknown, and the meaning of human existence amid the vastness of our planet’s most awesome force.
W&H: What attracted your attention to this story and why?
SD: We first learned about Katia and Maurice, our heroes of “Love is a firework,” while researching archival imagery of Icelandic volcanoes for my last film “The Seer & the Unseen,” which we shot in Iceland. That doc was also produced by one of my “Fire of Love” producers, Shane Boris, and edited by one of my “Fire of Love” editors, Erin Casper.
Once I saw Katia and Maurice’s footage, I was stunned — the imagery was not just spectacular, but was captured at such close range, dangerously close. The imagery showed that they were willing and able to risk their lives in order to understand the power of volcanic eruptions. I became more fascinated by their unique relationship and their humor as well as their passion for the planet.
W&H: What do you want people to think about after they watch the film?
SD: First, I hope people think about what it means for them to live a meaningful existence and die a meaningful ending. Through their dedication to understanding how the earth works – at the cost of their own lives – Katia and Maurice exemplify that notion.
I also hope audiences will think about what we leave behind as we pass on from this earth: the footage, the photographs, the materiality of one’s archives, but also the questions and all that cannot be answered. In our film, we acknowledge that there are holes in Katia and Maurice’s story – questions we had for them that will forever remain mysteries since they themselves have died. In my mind, it’s in these gaps where myths are shaped that offers a way to understand the unknown. I hope that the film will be seen by the public as a myth about the epic love stories and lives of the protagonists.
Most importantly, I hope that the audience thinks about love.
W&H: What was the biggest challenge in making the film?
SD: There were many challenges. However, I think our challenges turned into creative opportunities. For example, the 16mm footage didn’t have any sound, so our editors, Erin Casper and Jocelyne Chaput, meticulously created whole soundscapes during the editing process long before we even got to the mix. We also had to figure out how to tell a love story, since either Maurice or Katia were always behind a camera.
Although there is no footage of them holding hands or kissing each other, it led us to think creatively. We saw how their true love was volcanoes. They not only loved each others but also worked together so that their third love could be with them. Volcanoes became our language of telling a love story, and we thought that was truer to Katia and Maurice’s story than if you ever actually saw them kiss.
W&H: How did you get your film funded? Please share your insights on how you got the film made.
SD: I am deeply grateful to Sandbox Films, our executive producers and funders who supported the film. Sandbox Films’ Jessica Harrop (Greg Boustead) and Jessica Harrop (the directors) were the ideal partners for this movie. They joined us at the very early stage and worked with me through the entire development process. They are filmmaker-friendly, and have a unique approach to supporting cinematic scientific storytelling.
We were also awarded a grant from the Sundance Documentary Film Program as well as award funds from Hot Docs Forum. We were also awarded funding through Telefilm Canada, Canada and Quebec tax credits programs.
W&H: What inspired you to become a filmmaker?
SD: I believed that I would be a professor in anthropology, examining systems of power through the lense of economic and ecological relationships for most of my life. As I moved through my academic life, I realized the limitations of academic languages.
I found myself drawn to storytelling and visual arts as a way to explore the questions that most fascinated me and bring me a sense and justice. I found a new home in Bay Area non-fiction and fell in love the process of making documentary film. I loved the collaborations, both between the subjects and my crew.
W&H: What’s the best and worst advice you’ve received?
SD: I’ve learned the best advice is to see every challenge and opportunity as an opportunity for creativity. Even if I have doubted it at first, I have come to know that there is a true flip side to each obstacle — if pursued with integrity of vision, spirit, and respect.
I’m actually unsure of the worst advice I’ve received, but it probably would have to do with people encouraging me or my collaborators to make choices that fall outside of the bounds of what we ethically or creatively feels true and right for our process and project in order to satisfy a commercial or political aim.
W&H: What advice do you have for other women directors?
SD: The best advice I can give is to hold your good collaborators close and go the extra mile in making your women and nonbinary colleagues’ labor and contributions all the more visible through the filmmaking process. Respect and reciprocity are the keys to building a community.
W&H: Name your favorite woman-directed film and why.
SD: “Me and You and Everyone We Know,” Miranda July is the director, writer, and star. I’m not just saying this because Miranda July is our narrator for “Fire of Love” – she has been a profound force of inspiration in my life for years, all stemming back to the first time I saw this film in 2006.
I love “Me and You and Everyone We Know” because I believe that each and every scene is saturated with a feeling of poignant intimacy; there’s a delicate strangeness that somehow is unmistakably familiar all at once. It’s funny and existential and warm and alive – I’ve watched it so many times now that it feels like an old and trusted friend.
W&H: How are you adjusting to life during the COVID-19 pandemic? Are you creative? If so, how?
SD: The pandemic shook me hard and required a lot of adjustments. There were also some drastic changes. I am grateful for the support of my family, friends, and the filmmaking community.
Specifically, at the start of the pandemic, a group of doc directors — Cecilia Aldarondo, Eddie Martinez, Hannah Jayanti, Samara Chadwick, Sasha Wortzel, Sonia Kennebeck, Ursula Liang — and I would meet once a week through Zoom to discuss what to do amid the collapse of in-person festivals, how to keep making films, how to support each other and how to build community amid the fear and isolation. They were my lifeblood, and our friendships and collaborations have continued to inspire me almost two years later.
I also feel so lucky to have gotten to work on an archival film during the pandemic, which didn’t require any new fieldwork or shooting. With such amazing collaborators, particularly producers Shane Boris & Ina Fichman, and editors Erin Casper & Jocelynechaput. We were in touch each and every day and their humor, insights, and talents kept me inspired – and sane!
W&H: The film industry has a long history of underrepresenting people of color onscreen and behind the scenes and reinforcing — and creating — negative stereotypes. What are your suggestions for making it more inclusive?
SD: I believe that funders and studios, distributors, institutions, and funders need to support and build meaningful infrastructures for BIPOC and women-expansive filmmakers. They also need to fund, support, exhibit, and fund the stories they tell. There is some progress in this direction, but it must be more structural than performative.
These decision-makers must adopt hiring practices that accurately reflect the diversity in our country and correct the inequitable past practices. They should not draw from formal or informal networks of privilege and discrimination. Brown Girls Doc MafiaThis highly recommended organization champions BIPOC women, nonbinary talent, and encourages more than just hiring practices to achieve this structural shift.
When making films centered on BIPOC communities and historically marginalized people, I also think that filmmakers in positions of power and privilege, such as white and cis-male filmmakers, should interrogate themselves to always ask: “How does my perspective and life experience relate to the perspectives and life experiences of the subjects of the film? Am I actually the right person to tell this story?” If the answer is “no” or an uncomfortable stretch of a “yes,” they should make space for the right person to tell that story or meaningfully find collaborators from within the communities they are working so as to not replicate harmful stereotypes, even if that’s not the filmmakers’ intention.
Source: Women And Hollywood
