“Each Second Meant the Difference Between Life or Death”: Rory Kennedy on The Volcano: Rescue from Whakaari

Forget social and political issues — in documentaries, 2022 is shaping up to be the year of the volcano. There was Sara Dosa’s exquisite Fire of Love (which I fell in love with back at CPH:DOX in March, also screening at DOC NYC), in which a pair of lovestruck vulcanologists are quite literally consumed by their passion. Now we have not one, but two volcano-centric films debuting at this year’s DOC NYC. While I’ve not seen Herzog’s (pre-festival premiering) The Fire Within: A Requiem for Katia and Maurice Krafft, its title naming Dosa’s aforementioned protagonists, I’m guessing it’s likely the polar opposite of Rory Kennedy’s latest, The Volcano: Rescue from Whakaari. Though the volcano triumphs in the end of both films, Kennedy eschews the scientific angle (no vulcanologists were harmed in the making of the film — because they aren’t even in the film) in favor of the film’s humanitarian core. Comprised of footage from survivors (and Nat Geo cameras) alongside interviews with those who were there (with the emotional and/or physical scars to prove it), The Volcano: Rescue from Whakaari is a nail-biting, blow-by-blow, firsthand account of the titular 2019 eruption off the coast of New Zealand. While “White Island” was known to spew its toxic contents every few years or so in the middle of the night, this time the blast occurred during business hours, so to speak, while the area was filled with sightseeing tourists innocently snapping pics of the stunning crater and its surroundings. Fortunately for Filmmaker, the force behind the film — and other docs delving into public tragedies (2022’s Downfall: The Case Against Boeing, 2014’s Last Days in Vietnam, 2007’s Ghosts of Abu Ghraib) — was gracious enough to take time from her busy schedule to answer a few questions about The Volcano: Rescue from Whakaari, including how a documentarian with the Kennedy name connects to characters grappling with a personal nightmare in the glare of the media spotlight. The Volcano: Rescue from Whakaari debuts at DOC NYC on November 11 with a Netflix release to follow on December 16.

To read my interview visit Filmmaker magazine.