One of the Oscar contender for documentary this year, “Fire of Love” is getting the full-fledged romance movie treatment. Searchlight Pictures is making a deal to remake “Fire of Love,” Sara Dosa’s Oscar-nominated doc about French volcanologists Katia and Maurice Krafft, into a narrative feature film.
The film follows the scientific research and romance of preeminent French volcanologist and filmmakers Katia and Maurice Krafft. Dosa and her team assembled the doc from thousands of photographs and hundreds of hours of footage from the couple’s archives. Miranda July provided narration, and the soundtrack was composed by Nicholas Godin of Air. The film was released theatrically in over 28 countries, grossing over $1.1 million in the U.S. through distribution by Neon, which drove it to become the fourth highest-grossing documentary since the pandemic began.
The narrative version will deal heavily relied on the love story between them and how the daring pair’s pursuit of what they love led to them paying the ultimate price in the 1991 Mount Unzen eruption in northern Japan with both dying in the incident.
Premiering at Sundance in last year and winning a Jury Prize there, the doco film was acquired by National Geographic and is the front runner to win Best Documentary at this year’s Oscars. Critical acclaim for the film is sky high with a 98% on Rotten Tomatoes.
Searchlight Pictures will finance and distribute the narrative film which Jamie Patricof’s Hunting Lane will develop and produce. Sara Dosa, Ina Fichman and Shane Boris are attached to produce and no casting is available at this time.
The original documentary is available to stream now across much of the world, be it Disney+ or Hulu.