Sara Dosa’s first directorial feature, “The Last Season,” won the Golden Gate Award when it premiered at the San Francisco International Film Festival in 2014. In addition to film, Dosa has worked in TV, and co-directed an episode of Netflix’s “ReMastered: Tricky Dick and the Man in Black” with Barbara Kopple.
“The Seer and the Unseen” will premiere at the 2019 DOC NYC film festival on November 12.
W&H: Describe the film for us in your own words.
SD: “The Seer and the Unseen” is a magic realist documentary about invisible elves, financial collapse, and the surprising power of belief.
The documentary follows Ragga Jónsdóttir, an Icelandic grandmother and seer who has the ability to communicate with a parallel realm of elves — invisible spirits of nature that over half of Iceland believes exist.
As a respected seer, government officials, businesses, and individuals call upon Ragga to consult the elves to learn where land can and cannot be developed — but not everyone listens.
Despite Ragga’s pleas and the protests of environmentalists, a road is being built through an ecologically important lava field, threatening to destroy an elf habitat. The road, she argues, is needless — and just one of the many needless construction projects launched in the aftermath of Iceland’s financial meltdown in 2008, a crisis driven by the “invisible hand of the free market.”
Ragga’s journey becomes an allegory for the human relationship to nature and development in the wake of the global financial collapse. In doing so, “The Seer and the Unseen” explores the invisible forces — be they elves or the market — that shape our world and transform our natural landscapes.
W&H: What drew you to this story?
SD: As a director, I am interested in making layered, unexpected films that explore the human relationship to ecology and economy through character-driven stories and an observational vérité style.
This artistic approach was exemplified in my first film, “The Last Season,” which was about former soldiers-turned-wild mushroom hunters and it is my guiding principle in “The Seer and the Unseen.”
While the connections between, say, financial markets and the belief in elves, or mushroom-hunting and the trauma of war may not be immediately apparent, I delight in weaving together these unlikely pairs of themes and symbols, looking for how they resonate with each other in subtle yet powerful ways.
By doing so, I hope that my work can spark conversations about how all humans are deeply interconnected in ways we might never imagine.
When I first heard about Ragga , her gift, and the conflict she was in protecting the lava field, I was already familiar with the spectacular story of Iceland’s banking meltdown. I remembered that the language I had read about the unprecedented economic expansion that preceded the financial collapse was laced with “magical thinking” type phases like “money seemed to appear out of thin air.”
I thought that there was something interesting happening in Iceland regarding belief — something actually found all around the world — that seemed to crystallize in what I then understood to be Ragga ‘s story. I felt like her journey could be the kind of unexpected story with multiple layers to explore that ignites my own imagination.
The more I researched and the more I learned about Ragga, Iceland, and the financial collapse, the more I thought this approach could provide a playful way of understanding how the systems that govern our world are the products of humans making meaning through complex cultural processes.
Our film’s conflict illuminates the power of faith that lays at the heart of the systems that govern our world, revealing that something so illusory and mysterious as belief can have a tremendous material impact on our lives.
We can’t see God, for instance, but so many of us believe God exists, and that belief has profound consequences on how many live their lives. The same is true of the forces animating markets, which are regularly taken as fact and the products of “natural laws,” rather than understood as comprising a system of beliefs. Rather than express this sentiment in academic language, our protagonist, Ragga, provides a spirited and deeply human conduit for this exploration.
By juxtaposing these systems of belief, I ultimately wanted to make a film about what humans choose to see: the spirits of the land who beckon protection for the environment or the valuations of an economic logic capable of producing gross inequality, environmental destruction, and a bankrupted nation.
My hope is that the film can show the power of these unseen forces and reveal not just what is worth seeing, but what is worth saving.
W&H: What do you want people to think about when they are leaving the theater?
SD: I want people to feel a sense of wonderment and delight and to leave the theater contemplating the hidden magic that might exist otherwise unseen in their own daily lives.
I want audience members to feel compelled — and enabled — to do what Ragga does in the film to connect with nature, to “listen to the silence,” as she poetically phrases it. I want people to take time to see the land and revel in not only in the majesty, but also the small details. Ragga says something in the film that I always found quite powerful, “The way you see the land determines how you relate to the land.”
I also want audiences to feel inspired by our heroine Ragga and to understand that the individual actions of one person truly can create significant positive change. Ragga unabashedly follows her heart and forges a genuine relationship with nature. She’s a true Lorax — the Dr. Seuss character who speaks on behalf of the trees — as the spokeswoman for the elves she risks so much to protect.
W&H: What was the biggest challenge in making the film?
SD: It was challenging to figure out the most effective and enchanting way of representing the elves on screen. While Ragga is a talented artist and draws exactly what she sees, we decided that we wanted our audience to try to feel the invisible and “see” using their other senses — a challenge when working in a visual medium!
We decided to work in a form we think of as “vérité magic realism,” finding inspiration in the celebrated Colombian writer Gabriel García Márquez. The film unfolds through an adaption of cinema vérité that observes reality, but the reality that we observe is one imbued with magic.
We wanted to create a sensory experience where the audience feels a subtle yet palpable shift when Ragga is in the presence of elves. Through the sound design and focus on the lush, immersive, and hyperreal details of the landscape that Ragga surveys, we created a sense of stillness. Then, the sound of wind, the feel of motion, and presence around her. We wanted to entice the audience into believing.
W&H: How did you get your film funded? Share some insights into how you got the film made.
SD: We were funded largely through grants and donations, along with some equity investment.
Our funders include: the Sundance Documentary Film Program, The Icelandic Film Center, RYOT Filmes, Tribeca Film Institute, Film Independent, The Rose Gold Fund, and Pacific Pioneer Fund.
Also, we had the wonderful support of executive producers Nion McEvoy and Leslie Berriman.
W&H: What inspired you to become a filmmaker?
SD: For most of my life, I had thought I was going to be a professor of cultural anthropology — a field that I loved and believed equipped me with important frameworks for exploring and critiquing systems of power. But I felt limited by academia and increasingly distant from the human — the actual subject of the field — as I got deeper into academic study.
But then, nearly 20 years ago, I saw a documentary that explored the ravages of free trade on Jamaica, but through an artfully filmed, intimately observed personal story.
The film was grounded in anthropological critique, yet felt deeply human and emotional and was a call to action. I remember instantly thinking that that was what I wanted to do.
Since then, I have become even more inspired to reaffirm my commitment to documentary filmmaking. I am in love with the process — the inquiry it invites, the collaborative spirit it requires, the travel, the adventure, and the artmaking.
W&H: What’s the best and worst advice you’ve received?
SD: The best advice I have received was to be open to serendipity and spontaneity of the process, and to let your subjects guide you. Other peoples’ lives and stories are our medium in documentary film.
While we may have an idea of where the story may lead us as filmmakers, we cannot control or predict in what direction they will go.But, if we listen to and understand our subjects, being flexible and attuned to their own goals, not only will we be treating them with respect, but will often find a more true, expansive, complex, and beautiful way to tell the story.
In terms of worst advice, for “The Seer and the Unseen,” someone said we needed to either make our protagonist seem crazy — she is not “crazy” — or “produce a real elf” for audiences to buy into the story.
That went against all my storytelling instincts, and moreover, would not be treating my protagonist Ragga with respect.
W&H: What advice do you have for other female directors?
SD: On a new set or at industry events, be sure to introduce yourself as “the director.” Unless I explicitly lead off by saying I’m the director, time and time again, people — largely men — assume I’m not the director of my own films.
I’m even met with surprise when I do say that I’m the director, which is particularly frustrating. This isn’t just a vanity thing, though — when people don’t know that you directed your own film, you’re robbed of opportunities in these kinds of networking situations. Speak up and let people know the work that you did.
Also, find your best collaborators and hold them close. As women, we have to work so much harder to prove ourselves in this industry to receive the same kind of opportunities as men, and this is even harder for women of color and trans, gender expansive, and queer people.
You can try to go it alone, but I’ve found that if you’re working with people you enjoy, respect — people who understand and support you through the challenging process of documentary filmmaking — it makes for a much better process all around. I find so much joy and inspiration in my collaborators. I love my team and feel beyond grateful to have gotten to work with them.
I’d also offer the advice to call out the sexism when you see and experience it. It’s difficult to have to do that additional work to educate people, and of course, it can be scary to confront people who hold power over you. But I believe it’s also essential that we continue to erode the rampant sexism in our industry and hold the bad actors accountable.
W&H: Name your favorite woman-directed film and why.
SD: I have many. As for docs, “Harlan County, USA” by Barbara Kopple and “The Gleaners and I” by Agnès Varda will forever be favorites.
“Honeyland” co-directed by Tamara Kotevska with Ljubo Stefanov and “Jaddoland” by Nadia Shihab are more recent favorites.
Even though I don’t make scripted films, I’ve been enjoying studying the work of master narrative filmmaker Kelly Reichardt, and “Wendy and Lucy” in particular. Reichardt is able to communicate such depth and complexity of character with precise, sparse dialogue and creates such lush, atmospheric worlds. I think she’s incredible.
W&H: What differences have you noticed in the industry since the #MeToo and #TimesUp movements launched?
SD: I’ve felt an even stronger sense of sisterhood both in and out of the film industry since #MeToo and #TimesUp launched. It’s just out in the open more now.
Often, when I start working with a new woman on a crew, our shared “battle wounds” are an early point of connection. We seem to just instinctively know to get each others’ back.
And I personally have found that some men are becoming more receptive to feedback or are more empathetic when they hear the stories women routinely endure. At the same time, I’m not sure there’s really been all that much change. Some of the most angering and flagrantly sexist encounters I’ve had have taken place in the #MeToo era — I’ve even hilariously had men mansplain #MeToo to me. So much more work still needs to be done.
