Sara Dosa's 'Time and Water' Premieres at CPH:DOX
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- Sara Dosa directed 'Time and Water,' a documentary that premiered at Sundance and screened multiple times at CPH:DOX in Copenhagen, following Icelandic author Andri Snær Magnason as he witnesses a glacier dying from climate change.
- Dosa said the film grew out of Magnason's article 'How Do You Say Goodbye to a Glacier?' about Okjökull, the Icelandic glacier declared moribund after shedding layer after layer of thickness — a question she called 'profound' amid the climate crisis.
- National Geographic EVP Carolyn Bernstein said the network backs only about four films per year and that Dosa's prior film 'Fire of Love' was a 'perfect bullseye' for the brand — Bernstein recalled telling her team 'we must do whatever we can to make this film a National Geographic film' after seeing it at Sundance.
- Producer Shane Boris acknowledged some NatGeo notes on 'Time and Water' were disruptive, citing a scene in which Magnason places a plaque on the dead glacier that moved from the first act to the third act after outside feedback.
- 'Fire of Love' earned Dosa an Academy Award nomination in 2022 for her portrait of vulcanologists Katia and Maurice Krafft; Boris said it was 'the first time we got paid for our work and we could make a film, have a budget and a schedule that we could keep.'
- Dosa distinguished the two projects, saying 'it was really important to us to make sure this was not like a sequel' — calling 'Time and Water' a multi-generational love letter to Iceland and its glaciers rather than a thematic repeat of her volcano film.
- 'Time and Water' is directed and produced by Dosa and produced by Boris, Jameka Autry, and Elijah Stevens, with Magnason and Heather Millard as co-producers; the film is expected to get a robust awards campaign as the year progresses.
Why it matters: Dosa and Boris have moved from independent filmmakers who couldn't get paid to artists whose next project was fought over by National Geographic — a rare trajectory Bernstein attributes to 'Fire of Love' being a 'total no-brainer' for the brand. With NatGeo backing only about four films per year and a robust awards campaign ahead, 'Time and Water' enters the season with the institutional support that eluded Dosa on her prior Icelandic film 'The Seer and the Unseen.'
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