‘Fire Of Love’ Team On Their Volcanic Love Story For The Ages – Contenders Film: The Nominees
18.02.2023 - 21:17
/ deadline.com
When scientists Katia and Maurice Krafft married in 1970, they headed to a place where few couples would choose to honeymoon: an active volcano. But Mount Stromboli off the coast of Sicily could not have suited them better as the love they shared was equaled only by their passion for the study of volcanoes.
The Oscar-nominated National Geographic documentary Fire of Love, directed by Sara Dosa, explores the Kraffts’ obsession with Earth’s explosive displays, a pursuit that would ultimately cost them their lives. Instead of presenting the story in dry scientific terms, Dosa and her team explore it in a more expressive way — as an epic love story.
“It actually came quite early on in our process that we got the idea of telling Fire of Love as a love story,” Dosa explained as she and her cinematic collaborators appeared at Deadline’s Contenders Film: The Nominees virtual event. “We came across a sentence in a book that Maurice authored that said, ‘For me, Katia and volcanoes, it is a love story.’ And with that, we really felt like Maurice was kind of handling down a thesis statement on their lives, or perhaps a prism through which we could interpret their vast legacy.”
Katia trained as a physicist and chemist, while Maurice studied geology. They thrived working out in the field where they could document volcanoes with scientific instruments, as well as photography and film.
“We knew of Maurice and Katia as scientists, of course, but we also saw them as artists, as filmmakers,” producer Shane Boris said. “That was a really important part for us to be able to bring up — both those elements of their personality and of their life’s work. You feel, in who they are, that as they want to approach greater understanding of the