Craig Foster is a South African documentary filmmaker, naturalist, and founder of the Sea Change Project. He is known for the 2020 film ''

My Octopus Teacher ''My Octopus Teacher'' is a 2020 Netflix Original documentary film directed by Pippa Ehrlich and James Reed, which documents a year spent by filmmaker Craig Foster forging a relationship with a wild common octopus in a South African kelp forest ...

'', for which he won an

Academy Award The Academy Awards, better known as the Oscars, are awards for artistic and technical merit for the American and international film industry. The awards are regarded by many as the most prestigious, significant awards in the entertainment ind ...

in 2021.

Career

In 2012, Foster co-founded the Sea Change Project, a nonprofit group to protect marine life and raise awareness of the importance of the

kelp forest Kelp forests are underwater areas with a high density of kelp, which covers a large part of the world's coastlines. Smaller areas of anchored kelp are called kelp beds. They are recognized as one of the most productive and dynamic ecosystems on Ea ...

in South Africa. When making ''The Great Dance: A Hunter's Story'' (2000) and ''My Hunter's Heart'' (2010), he learned some of the

animal tracking Tracking in hunting and ecology is the science and art of observing animal tracks and other signs, with the goal of gaining understanding of the landscape and the animal being tracked (the "quarry"). A further goal of tracking is the deeper unde ...

techniques from the

San people The San peoples (also Saan), or Bushmen, are members of various Khoe, Tuu, or Kxʼa-speaking indigenous hunter-gatherer cultures that are the first cultures of Southern Africa, and whose territories span Botswana, Namibia, Angola, Zambia, ...

of the

Kalahari Desert The Kalahari Desert is a large semi-arid sandy savanna in Southern Africa extending for , covering much of Botswana, and parts of Namibia and South Africa. It is not to be confused with the Angolan, Namibian, and South African Namib coastal de ...

''My Octopus Teacher''

Foster was the subject, producer, and photographer of a 2020

Netflix Original Netflix is an American global Internet streaming-on-demand media provider that has distributed a number of original streaming television shows, including original series, specials, miniseries, and documentaries and films. Netflix's original pro ...

film called ''

'', directed by Pippa Ehrlich and James Reed. The movie is about his experience diving in the kelp forests at a remote location in

False Bay False Bay (Afrikaans ''Valsbaai'') is a body of water in the Atlantic Ocean between the mountainous Cape Peninsula and the Hottentots Holland Mountains in the extreme south-west of South Africa. The mouth of the bay faces south and is demarcat ...

, near

Cape Town Cape Town ( af, Kaapstad; , xh, iKapa) is one of South Africa's three capital cities, serving as the seat of the Parliament of South Africa. It is the legislative capital of the country, the oldest city in the country, and the second largest ...

, in the Western Cape of South Africa. During that time, he found a

common octopus The common octopus (''Octopus vulgaris'') is a mollusc belonging to the class Cephalopod A cephalopod is any member of the molluscan class Cephalopoda (Greek plural , ; "head-feet") such as a squid, octopus, cuttlefish, or nautilus. The ...

who began to trust him, and he revisited and filmed her every day for that year. Foster started filming in 2010 and the project was ten years in the making. It was the first Netflix Original South African nature documentary. Underwater footage not shown in the movie but filmed by the same team, at the same location, and about the same subject, had been shown previously on ''

Blue Planet II ''Blue Planet II'' is a 2017 British nature documentary series on marine life produced by the BBC Natural History Unit. Like its predecessor, ''The Blue Planet'' (2001), it is narrated and presented by naturalist Sir David Attenborough. After ...

'', episode 5.

Recognition

During the course of his underwater tracking, Foster discovered eight new species of shrimp. One of them, '' Heteromysis fosteri'', was named after him.

Personal life

Foster is married to Indian documentary filmmaker and environmental journalist Swati Thiyagarajan. He has a son, Tom, by his former wife.

Publications

Foster is the co-author of ''Sea Change – Primal Joy and the Art of Underwater Tracking''.

Selected filmography

Foster's film projects include: * ''The Great Dance: A Hunter's Story'' (2000, director) * ''Africa Unbottled'' (2001, director) * ''Cosmic Africa'' (2003, director) * ''My Hunter's Heart'' (2010, director) * ''Into the Dragon's Lair'' (2010, cinematographer) * ''Wild Walk'' (2010 television series, director) * ''The Animal Communicator'' (2012, director, producer) * ''Touching the Dragon'' (2013, director) * ''Dragons Feast'' (2014 television documentary film, director) * ''

'' (2020, producer, cinematographer, subject)

References

External links

*
Sea Change Project

The making of ''My Octopus Teacher''
{{DEFAULTSORT:Foster, Craig South African documentary filmmakers People from Cape Town Living people Year of birth missing (living people) Producers who won the Best Documentary Short Subject Academy Award