CONVERSATION ABOUT TIME AND WATER

Sara Dosa is an Oscar®-nominated nonfiction filmmaker whose work centers on the human relationship with more-than-human nature. The films she has directed, “Fire of Love” (2022), “The Seer & The Unseen” (2019) and “The Last Season” (2015), have won numerous awards, including a Peabody and the Directors’ Guild of America Award, and were nominated for over 40 awards, including an Academy Award, BAFTA, Emmy and an Independent Spirit Award. Dosa’s work has been shown at festivals worldwide, including Sundance, SXSW, New Directors/New Films, CPH:DOX and Visions du Réel, and has screened in partnership with museums such as the MOMA, BAMPFA and the Louvre. In 2018, Dosa was named to the inaugural class of DOCNYC’s “40 under 40” and inducted into the Academy of Motion Pictures’ documentary branch. She graduated from Wesleyan University with a double major in sociology and anthropology and has a joint master’s in anthropology and international development studies from the London School of Economics and Political Science. Dosa lives and works in California.

Shane Boris is an Academy Award-winning and two-time Academy Award-nominated producer and writer working on films that push the boundaries of conventional form in order to tell timeless and cinematic stories. His films have premiered at festivals like Sundance and Venice, screened with museums, including the Louvre and MOMA, received honors such as BAFTA and Peabody awards, and were commissioned or acquired by distributors such as National Geographic, Netflix, HBO and CNN. In 2022, Boris produced two documentaries, “Fire of Love” and “Navalny,” both of which secured Oscar nominations and marked him as the first producer since 1942 to be nominated for two Academy Awards for Best Documentary Feature in the same year. Other recent films include “Hollywoodgate,” “King Coal,” “Stray,” “The Edge of Democracy,” “The Seer and The Unseen” and “All These Sleepless Nights.” Boris has also been a guest speaker at universities such as the Harvard Kennedy School and Columbia School of the Arts and has worked as a strategist for nonprofits, a writing consultant for authors and academics, and a song lyricist for musicians.

Carolyn Bernstein is Executive Vice President, Documentary Films at National Geographic (NGDF) where she oversees the award-winning National Geographic Documentary Films banner. Over the last eight years, Bernstein has built NGDF into an industry powerhouse, partnering with best-in-class filmmakers to tell gripping, creatively ambitious stories that inspire a deeper connection to our world. Under her leadership, NGDF has earned both awards recognition and commercial success, starting with E. Chai Vasarhelyi + Jimmy Chin’s Oscar, BAFTA and Emmy Award-winning ‘Free Solo’. Other notable titles include Oscar-nominees ‘The Cave’, ‘Fire of Love’, ‘Bobi Wine: The People’s President’, ‘Sugarcane’ and BAFTA-nominees ‘The Rescue’ and ‘Becoming Cousteau’. Notable upcoming titles include ‘Time and Water’ from Oscar-nominated director Sara Dosa, ‘Everest North’ (working title) from Vasarhelyi and Chin, and ‘Carl Sagan: We Are Made of Star Stuff’ from Oscar-nominated director Nanette Burstein. Bernstein has also been a scripted television executive for over 30 years, having developed and overseen culture-defining series ‘Dawson’s Creek’, ‘Gilmore Girls’, ‘Smallville’, ‘One Tree Hill’, FX’s ‘The Bridge’ and Nat Geo’s ‘Genius’ franchise. She is a magna cum laude graduate of Brown University and resides in Los Angeles with her family.