‘Honest stories transcend all boundaries’
Swati believes that acquisition of the film by Netflix convinced them that they were onto something. “We realised then that our documentary has global appeal.
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Express News Service
Environmental filmmaker Craig Foster and his team scarcely imagined that their documentary, My Octopus Teacher, would travel around the world, let alone win the highest honours at BAFTA and the Oscars. Craig, who was supposedly going through a rough patch in his life, found hope in the form of an octopus in the Great African Sea Forest. His wife, and production manager of My Octopus Teacher, Swati Thiyagarajan, shares that his daily encounters with the creature got him back on track, made him feel closer to his family once again, and now, has helped win an Academy Award.
Swati Thiyagarajan on Oscar Award-winning documentary My Octopus Teacher newindianexpress.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from newindianexpress.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
My Octopus Teacher does not use disturbing images of the degradation of the ocean and her creatures but gently lures the audience into a deep sense of wonder and compassion for the magical and bio-diverse world of the Great African Sea forest, where underwater tracker Craig Foster builds a profound relationship with a common octopus while diving near his home in False Bay.
The film last year became the first SA documentary to become a Netflix Original. It was released to instant acclaim during the global Covid-19 lockdown, which Ehrlich acknowledges as partly serendipitous to the film’s stellar rise in popularity