My Octopus Teacher wins Best Documentary Oscar
Netflix’s My Octopus Teacher has won the Oscar for Best Documentary Feature.
The film, directed by Pippa Ehrlich and James Reed follows film-maker and diver Craig Foster as he explores an underwater kelp forest near Cape Town, South Africa. It beat strong competition in its category to take home the prestigious award.
The film shows how Craig Foster began free-diving in a cold underwater kelp forest at a remote location in False Bay, near Cape Town, South Africa. He started to document his experiences and, in time, met a curious young octopus that captured his attention. He decided to keep visiting her den and tracking her movements every day for a year to win the animal’s trust. The two form a bond where she plays with Foster and allows him into her world to see how she sleeps, lives, and eats. In the film, Foster describes the impact on his life of his relationship with the octopus.
“In many ways this really is a tiny personal story that played out in seaforest at the very tip of Africa, but on a more universal level I hope that it provided a glimpse of a different type of relationship between human beings and the natural world.” — Pippa Ehrlich
You can read CJ and Mike’s review of the documentary for Scubaverse here.
Congratulations to the team at Sea Change Project!
