Apr 28, 2021
Here s today s feel-good story:
The 2021 Oscar winner for Best Documentary Feature My Octopus Teacher is the perfect antidote for our pandemic year.
The film, which explores the lengths a man will go to in order to build a relationship with an octopus just off of the tip of South Africa, has impacted people in ways that nobody thought possible.
Each day for a year, Craig Foster went free diving without a wetsuit or scuba equipment in the frigid water of the Great African Sea Forest to visit her and many have been touched by the film s subject matter.
Director Pippa Ehrlich said of the film: What I loved about this story is there was a story of positivity and hope that involved human beings and the natural world being in one place. It was an opportunity to expand people’s perceptions of what the relationship between us and the wild can be.”
Apr 28, 2021
Here s today s feel-good story:
The 2021 Oscar winner for Best Documentary Feature My Octopus Teacher is the perfect antidote for our pandemic year.
The film, which explores the lengths a man will go to in order to build a relationship with an octopus just off of the tip of South Africa, has impacted people in ways that nobody thought possible.
Each day for a year, Craig Foster went free diving without a wetsuit or scuba equipment in the frigid water of the Great African Sea Forest to visit her and many have been touched by the film s subject matter.
Director Pippa Ehrlich said of the film: What I loved about this story is there was a story of positivity and hope that involved human beings and the natural world being in one place. It was an opportunity to expand people’s perceptions of what the relationship between us and the wild can be.”
A still from Oscar-winning documentary ‘My Octopus Teacher’
| Photo Credit:
Netflix
Filmmaker and environmental journalist Swati talks to us about the award-winning film, that features her husband Craig Foster forging a relationship with an octopus
When
My Octopus Teacher first debuted on Netflix, viewers were unsure what to make of it from the title. Was it a sci-fi fantasy? An animation film?
But then, the word-of-mouth began, and the small project quickly grew into one of the most popular documentaries of 2020. Tracing the tender, almost mentor-like relationship between a sea diver and a common octopus in South Africa, the 85-minute long film is a poetic, visual feast that has managed to strike a chord with audiences worldwide.
SAâs âMy Octopus Teacherâ wins best documentary film Oscar
By Supplied
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The proudly South African Oscar won by âMy Octopus Teacherâ for Best Documentary Film on Monday morning has laid the foundation for an unprecedented increase in ocean awareness.
The film, which has won more than 20 international awards, including Best Documentary at the British Academy Film Awards (BAFTA) and Producers Guild of America Awards, becomes the first nature documentary to win an Academy Award since The Cove in 2010.
Co-director Pippa Ehrlich, who accepted the iconic gold statuette at the Academy Awards in Los Angeles with co directing colleague James Reed, said she was âutterly overwhelmedâ with âan honour we never dreamed possibleâ.
WATCH: âMy Octopus Teacherâs Craig Foster âdeeply honouredâ by Oscar win
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Share My Octopus Teacherâ, which has won more than 20 international awards, including Best Documentary at the British Academy Film Awards (BAFTA) and Producers Guild of America Awards, becomes the first nature documentary to win an Academy Award since The Cove in 2010.
Craig Foster, a documentary filmmaker for 28 years, says the Oscar victory brings life affirming kudos to the media advocacy work by the filmâs producing entity the Sea Change Project, which he co founded with My Octopus Teacher Associate Producer Ross Frylinck in 2012.
âThe Academy Award elevates the Great African Seaforest and surrounding ocean of South Africa into global iconic status. This is excellent news for us, because it underlines what we have been aiming for: to show the world that we are sitting on a biodiversity treasure trove that is deeply worthy of protection.â