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The Fire Within

A Storyville documentary in which film-maker Werner Herzog pays homage to French volcanologists Katia and Maurice Krafft, who were killed in a pyroclastic flow in Japan in 1991.

On 3 June 1991 at 3.18pm, a pyroclastic flow erupted from Mount Unzen in Japan. A cloud of superheated gases and particles descended at more than 100mph from the peak of the volcano, consuming everything in its path.

It instantly killed Katia and Maurice Krafft, volcanologists and film-makers from the Alsace region in France. They were too close. They were almost always too close. On the day before they died, Maurice said in an interview, 'I am never afraid, because I鈥檝e seen so many eruptions in 25 years that, even if I die tomorrow, I don鈥檛 care.'

The Fire Within pays homage to the Kraffts, who left an archive of more than 200 hours of footage of their final journey, unprecedented in its spectacular and hypnotic beauty.

Available now

1 hour, 29 minutes

Credits

Role Contributor
Narrator Werner Herzog
Writer Werner Herzog
Executive Producer Julien Dumont
Executive Producer Mandy Leith
Executive Producer Alexandre Soullier
Producer Peter Lown
Producer Alexandre Soullier
Producer Jess Winteringham
Director Werner Herzog
Production Company Brian Leith Productions
Production Company Bonne Pioche
Production Company Titan Films

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