by Thinus Ferreira
The South African film, My Octopus Teacher that is in the running for an Academy Award at this year's Oscars added to its existing award trophy haul on Sunday night after it scooped the best documentary prize in this category at the Bafta Film Awards 2021 in the United Kingdom.
Co-director Pippa Ehrlich accepted the award at the ceremony broadcast from London's Royal Albert Hall on Sunday night.
Pippa Ehrlich said that the production team had walked a "really long road together" and then also thanked the "very special little octopus who has opened hearts all over the world to the natural world and the great African sea forest" that features in the documentary film that is available on Netflix.
Next, South Africa's My Octopus Teacher as a 2020 Netflix Original will compete in the Best Documentary Feature against Collective (Magnolia Pictures and Participant), Crip Camp (Netflix), The Mole Agent (Gravitas Ventures), and Time (Amazon Studios).
My Octopus Teacher was directed by Pippa Ehrlich and James Reed - who is in a rain forest in Uganda at the moment - and documents a year spent by filmmaker Craig Foster forging a relationship with an octopus in a South African kelp forest.
My Octopus Teacher was a decade in the making with Craig Foster who started filming in 2010. The film became the first South African Netflix Original nature documentary.
My Octopus Teacher has already won several awards, including Best Documentary at the LabMeCrazy! Science Film Festival; and for Best Cinematography and Best Science/Nature Documentary at the Critics' Choice Documentary Awards.
My Octopus Teacher also won Best Feature Film at the EarthxFilm Festival and Best Documentary Director at the Guangzhou International Documentary Film Festival for Pippa Ehrlich and James Reed.
The film also won Best Documentary Feature in January at the Houston Film Critics Society Awards; and won in the categories for Best Music Score and the Pare Lorentz Award at the International Documentary Association Awards that also took place in January this year.
My Octopus Teacher also collected bling at the JacksonHole Film Festival in October 2020 where it picked up trophies in the categories for Best Editing, Best Science in Nature Film - long-form, Best People & Nature Film - long-form and snagged the awards' Grand Teton Award.
The 93rd Academy Awards will take place from the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles, as well as multiple locations on 25 April and will be broadcast on M-Net (DStv 101) in South Africa and across sub-Saharan Africa after it was pushed back from its originally scheduled 28 February date.
