“There is something radical about love, especially in a time that is so polarizing,” Dosa says. “Wherever we can center love and joy amid the doom and the apocalyptic stories abound, I think it could inspire hope…I think it can give a sense of a light in the dark to keep people working toward the change that we so badly need.”
Magnason’s story hit close to home for Dosa, who was raised in an extremely close family. In the film credits, Dosa extends a special thanks to her grandparents and great grandparents, whom she has lost through the years. This fear and dread of losing the people that shaped her is felt throughout the film in an achingly nostalgic way.
“When I lost them, something broke in me, I didn’t know how to make sense of the world anymore. To think that the people who made me could die, that the force of creation can go away — it was such a strange paradigmatic shift that I still really wrestle with,” Dosa says. “That question around life and death is something that I’m always trying to work out, [and] even finds its way into my filmmaking. That’s something that really spoke to me in Andri’s writing. How do we say goodbye?”
Time and Water is a stark wake-up call, not only to protect the planet we call home, but to cherish our time with loved ones. The future is now, and Dosa captures the course we took to get here. The question that defines the film is one that extends beyond generational knowledge: how do you say goodbye to what you never thought you could lose?
Time and Water premiered January 27, 2026 at the Sundance Film Festival. It also screened March 12 at the SXSW Film & TV Festival.
