The South African Netflix documentary, My Octopus Teacher, has won the Oscar for Best Documentary Feature at the 93rd Academy Awards Ceremony in Los Angeles.
Directed by Pippa Ehrlich and James Reed, My Octopus Teacher documents a year spent by filmmaker Craig Foster forging a relationship with a wild common octopus in a kelp forest in False Bay, Cape Town.
Filmmakers James Reed and Pippa Ehrlich accepted the honour:
“I know there are many South Africans who are awake in the middle of the night to watch this ceremony and in many ways this really is a tiny personal story that played out in a sea forest at the very tip of Africa but on a more universal level I hope that it provided a glimpse of a different types of relationship between human beings and the natural world.”
To take the award, the film defeated a strong lineup, including criminal justice system testimony Time, disability documentary Crip Camp, and corruption investigation Collective.
The film has already won a string of festival and critics’ awards, as well as taking both the Bafta and Producers Guild awards for best documentary.