Asking the Big Questions with Documentary Producer Shane Boris ’00

At Colorado Academy’s SPEAK (Series for Parent Education about Kids) lecture on November 6, 2025, Oscar-winning documentary film producer Shane Boris ’00 shared a conversation with Head of School Dr. Mike Davis, ranging from the dangers he and his team faced while working on the Academy Award-winning documentary Navalny to the role of humanity in an age that seems on the way to being defined by AI.

 

Introducing Boris, Dr. Davis described the CA graduate as “a storyteller whose work spans some of the most thought-provoking and visually stunning documentaries of our time.” 

Navalny, by far his best-known film, follows the late Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny as he works with a reporter to uncover the Kremlin-led plot to poison him, while risking imprisonment and, ultimately, death by standing up to corruption and authoritarianism in Vladimir Putin’s Russia.

In Fire of Love, for which Boris and his production team were nominated for yet another Academy Award alongside Navalny, we witness the passion and sacrifice of pioneering husband-and-wife French volcanologists Katia and Maurice Krafft, who filmed active volcanoes around the world in a quest for knowledge. The two lost their lives to an eruption in Japan that occurred in 1991. 

And finally, in King Coal, Boris and Director Elaine McMillion Sheldon examine the history and influence of coal mining in Appalachia, blending fantasy and reality to explore coal’s mythological status in the region.

Following his talk with Dr. Davis, Boris met with Upper School students to answer their questions about filmmaking and the film industry.

The path to ‘Navalny’

 

After it was discovered that Navalny had been poisoned with the deadly Soviet-era nerve agent Novichok, he was medically evacuated to Berlin, where he eventually recovered and began blaming the Russian government for the attempt on his life. However, he soon returned to Russia to continue his crusade to build the country he and his supporters envisioned. “What goes through the mind of a filmmaker,” wondered Dr. Davis, “when viewing raw footage of moments such as the one when Navalny is taken into custody for the last time after returning to Russia?” 

According to Boris, he, along with the film’s director, Daniel Rohrer, puzzled over what could have caused the politician to go back to Russia even though he must have known he was putting himself in great danger. 

“It became clear to us that it was his dogged pursuit and insistence on living his life with the kind of integrity he always articulated, to do what he believed he had to do for his country and himself,” explained Boris. “And this inspired us to try to do the same thing with our filmmaking.”

Boris’s interest in telling the stories of those who pursue what they believe at almost any cost was sparked at CA, he said. Two fellow students, Laura Goldhamer ’02 and Natalie Tate ’02, were “visionary” musicians who allowed Boris inside their music-making to help bring out their story. 

“I met so many amazing people at CA who had an incredible vision that they needed to express. I recognized early on that I had an ability to access the depths of their passion to learn what they wanted to say, and then to help them say it.”

His entry into the world of film production came as the result of a chance encounter on an international flight. He was unexpectedly seated next to the Los Angeles-based producer Andrew Spaulding, who shared a script with Boris and was impressed by his close reading. From there, he says, “I realized that there was something in this kind of work that I wanted to continue to do; and part of that was simply staying open to the world.”

Balancing fact and myth

Works such as Navalny, said Davis, force filmmakers and viewers alike to weigh real-world facts and research against the demands of crafting a narrative. “How do we tell a story in a world where there are competing versions of the truth?” he asked.

In reply, Boris quoted American playwright Eugene O’Neill, who once said, “A life with illusions is unpardonable, but a life without illusions is unbearable.”

“We are always balancing myth and fact,” explained Boris. “A myth exists inside a space of exaggeration and embellishment, but oftentimes it gets to a higher truth. And a story that’s rooted in fact can still be a piece of propaganda or persuasion. The process of making a documentary is in some ways like marrying the best of those two and trying to avoid the worst: where you’re telling a story that’s rooted in facts, but you’re trying to give it the quality of a myth to make something that speaks to an underlying truth.”

At the same time, he went on, forms such as documentary also must strike a balance between the idea of fate and the notion of destiny. 

“Fate is what is given to us, our context that we come to be in. And then destiny is what we move toward, what we are in the process of making. In trying to tell these stories where you’re given what you’re given—these are the shots that you got, these are the questions that you asked—how do you get inside that context to move toward what it is meant to be and who, by consequence, you are meant to be.”

According to Boris, the simple message of Navalny is, in fact, that “Young people—those living under an authoritarian regime and those who aren’t—actually have more power than you know, and you can’t give that power away; you can’t give up.”

‘Fire of Love’

Volcanologists and filmmakers, the Kraffts were kindred spirits who clearly loved each other; they also loved volcanoes, noted Boris, creating a sort of love “triangle” that he and Director Sara Dosa traced throughout their film. 

Constructed using only footage drawn from the Krafft’s own film archives, Fire of Love captures “the notion of the sentience of non-human nature. Katia and Maurice wanted in their one short lifetime to experience as many volcanoes as possible and to relate to them as living beings.”

They were uncompromising about living the life that they wanted, observed Boris. “And that’s a very powerful story and way to be. They didn’t look for permission from others to do what they thought they needed to do—the magnitude of their journey. I think this is an ongoing process for all of us, to recognize that for ourselves, and to not ask others for permission to do what we need to do.”

“And then,” Boris went on, “for us to make the hard choice, which is to do it, even if it comes with suffering.”

Fire of Love is a bittersweet story, he explained, questioning the costs of committing to what we care about most in the world. “Doing what you know to be true inevitably comes with suffering. However, if what you know is true, then that makes the sacrifice okay. Finding the truth is a high priority; but living your truth is higher.”

 

At the same time, Boris told the audience, pursuing one’s truth also requires great humility. The Kraffts, he pointed out, were deeply aware of their own insignificance in comparison to the scale of geologic time. 

“Success and failure are not ours to claim. They are the result of everything that has ever happened to you and everyone you’ve ever come in contact with. Grappling with that uncertainty requires faith—in the mystery of the universe.”

Documentary, Boris noted, requires the same faith in mystery. 

“When you’re making a documentary, you never know what story you’re going to tell. You are entering into the unknown, and you are confronting it and learning how to respond to it improvisationally and instantaneously.”

Boris continued, “And I think once you do that, and you realize that you can engage with and move through anything that comes your way, then you become so connected to the feeling that you can enter into any unknown situation and find your way through it and make something out of it. I think that lesson is as true in documentary as it is in life.”

‘King Coal’ and AI

“How do you make choices about what images, what stories to include when you have clearly had so much footage and photos to work with?” Dr. Davis wanted to know, referring to the Kraffts’ vast archives.

“Any cache of materials can tell dozens of different stories,” Boris replied. “Moving on to King Coal, there’s the prosperity coal brought to Appalachia, but also the environmental costs, the effects it’s had on families and the landscape. What was critical to us in telling the story of King Coal was seeking and expressing understanding, not casting judgments on a place or people.”

That ambition led Boris and Sheldon, the director, to take an approach that resembles magical realism, “moving between the dimensions of myth and fact to tell a different story about coal than the one that has dominated Appalachia.”

 

Davis wondered, “Will that type of nuanced, complex storytelling become important as AI wields increasing power in shaping our view of facts, reality, and even ourselves?”

Boris, who revealed he is currently at work on a documentary about the AI industry, replied, “I believe artificial intelligence is the most transformational technology we will experience in our lifetime. And in many ways AI dwarfs the power of all other technologies combined. That’s the world we’re about to step into, and what seems clear to me is that human systems as they are are not capable of coexisting with artificial intelligence.”

“This is a problem that is not necessarily technological,” Boris went on. “It’s more a human problem: How do we ‘upgrade’ ourselves and our systems to be able to live with artificial intelligence in a way that benefits humanity and the planet?”

Davis posed one final question: “Are you optimistic or fearful about what’s coming?”

According to Boris, “I don’t think we want the future that’s emerging right now, as artificial intelligence is being developed, deployed, and unleashed into all of our systems. I do believe in the value of human agency—intelligence is only part of what makes progress. Intelligence in some ways is knowing the answers to questions; wisdom—human wisdom—is knowing what questions to ask.”

“The task of humanity,” he continued, “and I think a task that filmmakers are so well suited to participate in, is figuring out what questions we need to ask, and then continuing to ask the biggest questions we can.”

And then it is up to humans, said Boris, to coordinate with each other, to make practical decisions about how AI is governed, how we develop it, and how it shapes our lives.

“All of us have a role to play in helping to compel technology companies to build AI in a way that serves people and serves what humanity needs most.”

Surrendering to mystery

And, as Boris explained to Upper School students in their own special assembly, there is one thing humanity may need more than AI’s authoritative answers: mystery.

“Documentary is a unique profession,” he told the students, “because you never know what you’re making when you sign up to work on something. In many cases, you’re following characters along in their own lives, and the events that you’re capturing haven’t finished happening yet—you’re anticipating that something might happen, but you have no idea.”

 

“So basically,” Boris went on, “you’re just surrendering to the mysteries of the universe, which is a really good lesson for life. When we’re living our lives, we’re constantly confronting situations that are unpredictable and yet to be experienced. In that case, the most important human skill—which AI can’t authentically recreate—is learning how to live spontaneously and improvisationally in response to everything that happens in life.”

To illustrate, he recounted one of his favorite parables: A religious man living in a village in rural Poland is studying the Torah, and every day, he travels many miles to visit a rabbi. After a few weeks, his neighbor asks him, “Why do you travel so far to see the rabbi when you could easily complete all your studies at home?” The religious man replies, “I don’t travel all that distance to study Torah with the rabbi. I do it so I can watch him tie his shoelaces.”

 

“That story has gotten lodged in my heart,” Boris said. “Because it points out that who we are is found in the process of living our life, not in any one moment or even one accolade,” such as the Oscar he won for Navalny, he noted. “Who we are is always in relation to the people around us and every present moment, and I want to live in a way that honors that process of becoming.”