Sara Dosa (‘Fire of Love’ director) on telling love story of Katia and Maurice Krafft through their own volcano footage [Exclusive Video Interview]

“There are many reasons I wanted to tell this story along with my team,” says Sara Dosa, the director of National Geographic’s documentary “Fire of Love.” The film recounts the story of intrepid scientists and lovers Katia and Maurice Krafft, who 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. We talked with Dosa as part of Gold Derby’s special “Meet the Experts” Q&A event with 2022/2023 awards contenders. Watch our exclusive video interview above.

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“I was utterly inspired by how Katia and Maurice led their life,” she explains. “They were so in love with volcanoes, and so beguiled and enchanted by the force, the magnitude, the power of nature. And they weren’t deterred by the danger of that. Instead the danger of their love kind of animated their lives. They were able to pull into focus what was most meaningful to them. That was scientific inquiry, living a meaningful life and being with each other. They really inspired me.”

Dosa stumbled upon Katia and Maurice’s story while seeking out archival volcano footage for another film. “We were absolutely enthralled by the imagery,” she admits. “Just how they shot volcanoes. You could really sense how close they were. But it was once we learned about them as characters and specifically that they were a married couple, that they were so in love with each other and the earth, we thought, okay, we want to dwell in their world. We want to learn more about them. And then of course we found out they had this extraordinary archive. That really got us excited to make this film.”

As Dosa was putting the film together, she had to get creative in telling a love story using hundreds of hours of volcano footage. “There is a sentence in a book that Maurice actually wrote where he said, ‘For me, Katia and volcanoes, it is a love story.’ And with that sentence we really felt like Maurice was giving us the thesis to their lives. That really helped to shape what we used. It was quite difficult because there’s not a lot of the classic imagery people associate with a love story. No footage of Katia and Maurice kissing or holding hands or going on out dates. We realized that imagery of volcanoes more aptly expressed the power of their love than any image of humans doing conventional PDA ever could.”

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