“Growing up, I thought I would be either a professor of cultural anthropology or a non-fiction, long-form writer, but then I fell in love with cinema,” said Sara Dosa. Combining these childhood dreams into one career, Sara found herself behind the camera on films like The Last Season, The Seer and the Unseen, and most recently, Fire of Love.
In college, Sara was active in economic justice groups and saw a documentary about “the ravages of free trade in Jamaica” that combined “grandiose academic ideas” and delivered it in “human terms.” She said, “These emotional colors, so to speak, were the marriage of politics as well as art, that really moved me.”
This is also known as The Mother Teresa Effect, which many charities think about today when creating messages for people to act upon. The idea comes from Mother Teresa herself, who said, “If I look at the mass, I will never act. If I look at the one, I will.” Research behind this idea shows us that people give more to a single person-focused charity (emotional) than to a larger cause, where they are given stats over a human element (analytical).
Sara thinks about these types of things when searching for projects like Fire of Love. The description for her latest project reads, “Intrepid scientists and lovers Katia and Maurice Krafft died in a volcanic explosion doing the very thing that brought them together: unraveling the mysteries of volcanoes by capturing the most explosive imagery ever recorded.”
As a storyteller, she sees all of these different roles as one job. “It’s akin to religion for me. Connected to the world. A feeling of humanity. The questions that ignite my mind. Different types of jobs in service of the same thing: creating meaningful stories of impact.” And for Sara, this means a deep passion for the work, but also a strong team of animators, writers, and editors around her.
Causes to Obsess Over
“I think my curiosity is sparked most when I encounter stories about the human relationship with non-human nature,” she said. “I’m endlessly fascinated with the meaning and the symbolism that’s rich in the natural world, and the way people tell stories about nature.”
In The Last Season, for example, Sara’s team uncovered the story of the lucrative matsutake mushroom through the eyes of two soldiers looking to heal the wounds of war. In The Seer and the Unseen, an Icelandic woman tells a magical story of invisible elves and financial collapse, not unlike the story of The Lorax (this Icelandic film also introduced Sara’s team to the Krafft couple which quickly turned into “documentary gold”).
“I feel an awe and transcendence by the ocean or forest or in a lava field. That kind of wonderment really dovetails with the highest goals of cinema. I want to put people into that space. I feel passionate about environmental issues, but also the profound human dimension.”
She continued, “I think there’s a long history of storytelling about humans and nature as part of the same system rather than apart, and I want to add imagery and create further stories that show we’re all connected. I feel like showing the life force of nature can work as an act of repair.”
As for her latest work, the inspiration came from the couple and their unusual love story that sparked from an obsession in volcanoes. “At first, just Katia and Maurice’s imagery knocked me over. They were so spectacular and unlike anything I had ever seen. The fact that they were a couple in love with each other and with the earth, they had this mythic way of living life. I was in awe of that clarity of purpose.”
The Archival Edit
Described as “the most explosive imagery ever recorded,” the archival footage from the couple — consisting of hundreds of hours of film — not only detailed their work, but the lives they had lived. For this project, Sara’s team had to work with what they had and piece it together in a creative way.
“All archives have their limits,” she said. “You have to make sense of the gaps and the record or the systemic erasures to figure out how you’re going to tell the story. For us, we encountered tremendous limitations, but after some consternation, we realized each limitation was actually an opportunity to create a new grammar to weave the images and sounds together. It’s very different from observational filmmaking.”
In many of her other projects, Sara was able to ask the subjects questions. In this scenario, where the couple died in 1991, there were potentially more questions than answers. “There’s all these questions that remain unanswered, and thus a sort of unrequitedness to our whole process. There’s a sadness that comes with that, but I think unrequitedness sits at the heart of romance.”
Sara Dosa. Photo by Eric Tanner/ Getty Images
For many documentarians, projects work to fulfill one of two goals: some try to answer questions while others try to merely shine a light on those questions. “I don’t necessarily set out with a set of questions I want answered. I think there’s a process of asking questions that begets more questions.”
She continued, “They relay a pathway that opens up an inquisitive sense. This is maybe a silly way of putting it, but I’ve always thought of films as these little marbles, these littles worlds you can enter, and dwell within, and the more cohesive and finely rendered the world, the more you can feel suspended in it and ask questions yourself.”
“While not all of these questions are answered by us, in regards of the filmmaking team, hopefully they will plan questions in the minds of the audience and give them enough information about this world that they can answer it themselves.”
Adding a Creative Spin
Beyond the archival footage, there’s still room for the team to add their own creative twist to the narrative, sometimes in obvious ways, sometimes between the lines. “We wanted Katia and Maurice to be our guides for our creative choices, which meant deep research to understand them as well as we could.” Then they could use animation and narration to fill in the gaps.
“That meant watching all of their footage, reading the nearly twenty books they authored, we interviewed friends, loved ones, and collaborators… and yet there’s a limitation to what we know about them. And then there’s always the subjectivity of the filmmakers who are interpreting the film.”
To fill in some of these missing pieces, Sara worked with screenwriters Shane Boris, Erin Casper, and Jocelyne Chaput to write a voiceover for author-director Miranda July to narrate. “That’s where I really felt, my role as director and the collaborative relationship — writing, editing, animating — and we needed an interpretive prism to understand the material. That’s where we have to take ownership, and for us, it was a love story.”
Among all of this research, the North Star came from Maurice, the subject of the film. “It all came from a sentence he wrote in a book. He said, ‘For me, Katia, and volcanoes, it is a love story.’ We felt like Maurice was telling us the story of his life was actually a love triangle, with his wife and fellow volcanologist Katia, and volcanoes. When we went about our research [and questioned friends and family], that was very much reiterated.”
If Sara were to start over today or share advice to novice documentarians, she would tell you to “really go for what you’re most passionate about, what ignites your curiosity most, what questions you can’t not ask.” She concluded. “It’s grueling work and joyous and revelatory, but you need a drive to carry you through. But I would also say, find your people. My collaborators are everything for me. I’m particularly indebted to my women mentors and women collaborators who can support each other to navigate the misogyny we’ve encountered. Find the stories that drive you most and find your people.”
This interview has been condensed. Listen to the full audio interview here.
