Fire of Love: exploring the human relationship with nature
Madrid, Aug 22 (EFE).- The award-winning documentary Fire of Love, which tells the love story of two volcanologist-filmmakers, is a “jumping off point” to a wider conversation, director and producer of the film, Sara Dosa, said.
“For us, we hope that the film is just a jumping off point, just a beginning to a wider conversation about science, the human relationship with nature, about filmmaking and most importantly about these two humans and the wonderful legacy that they left behind,” Dosa told Efe in an interview.
The documentary, which won the best editing award at the Sundance Festival and best film at DocsBarcelona, tells the story of married pair of French volcanologists Katia and Maurice Krafft, their love for each other and volcanoes.
Dosa came across archive footage of the couple while researching imagery for her previous film set in Iceland.
“We were looking for images of erupting volcanoes for one of the scenes in that film, (…) very few people actually have filmed erupting volcanoes in Iceland during the 70s and 80s but Katia and Maurice of course did, and so that is how we first learned about them,” the producer said.
“We immediately recognized that their footage was spectacular, but it wasn’t until we learnt about the story of them as a couple and also their unique lifestyle, personalities, that is what really got us hooked,” Dosa added.
Love of Fire was inspired by a sentence written by Maurice in a book.
“Maurice wrote: for me, Katia and volcanoes, it is a love story,” the award-winning producer said, adding that although the sentence is at the end of the documentary, it was the “genesis” point for the film.
Dosa continued to say that while the film tackles science and volcanoes, it is really about the love story between Maurice, Katia and volcanoes.
“He was in a love triangle relationship between himself Katia and volcanoes and it was these three characters that formed this unique relationship that pushed and pulled them towards the unknown and greater understanding of nature and humanity,” she said.
“It was very difficult to balance the story of Katia and Maurice as characters, (…) the story of their love with some of the philosophy as well as the science.
“Once we tried putting more science in the film, we tested it out with a few people, they said it was too much science, they tuned out, so we had to pair back,” she explained.
Maurice and Katia were among dozens of people killed by the eruption of Mount Unzen on the island of Kyushu in Japan in 1991. EFE
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