Congratulations to the team from My Octopus Teacher for winning an Academy Award for Best Documentary. The achievement, as well as the documentary, serves as a glimmer of hope and inspiration during a time of turmoil felt across the world and we thank them for their outstanding work. This is a well deserved accomplishment. 

OD Craig Foster (1985F) conceived, wrote, filmed and starred in this stunning documentary. Two other ODs involved were Kevin Smuts (2004O), who composed the soundtrack which earned best Documentary Soundtrack Award at the International Documentary Association's 2021 Awards, and Barry Donnelly (1988B) who was the sound engineer.

For three decades, Craig has forged a deeply respected but low-key record as a naturalist and filmmaker in South Africa. Then, just like that, he gained overnight international acclaim thanks to the phenomenal success of the Netflix documentary My Octopus Teacher, about his relationship with a wild octopus in False Bay. Not long after its release last September, Craig was receiving “an email every four seconds”. Then his film started winning awards. In January it won the Pare Lorentz Award at the International Documentary Association (IDA) Awards, “the Oscar Awards for documentaries”. In March it was nominated for an actual Oscar…

Craig has been so overwhelmed with correspondence and well-wishes that his success has become something of a paradox, with the potential to steal from him the valuable time in nature that has come to define who he is. As a result he has proven as tricky to track down as an octopus in a kelp forest. Tim Richman was fortunate to speak to him earlier this year in the only interview he’d given since the release of My Octopus Teacher to that point. This is the extended transcript lightly edited for length and sense.

Starting with a story we discussed previously: how is it that my five-year-old son watches My Octopus Teacher on TV then the next time we’re at the beach in Hermanus he finds a baby octopus, which I had walked right past, hiding against a rock in a few inches of water?  And after that we see three more octopuses in the next pool over. [This really happened.]

What I liked about your story with your son – and if you can include this – is that this is exactly what we are trying to do. It’s called emotional ecology. You see the documentary or read the book or go to one of our talks, and then you actually go out into nature and now you’ve got that octopus in your mind – and, as you said, you strangely start seeing amazing behaviour, you start seeing things. It’s very powerful. A five-year-old is already connected to nature and his mind is not cluttered. A good naturalist needs an uncluttered mind – you can’t be thinking of your taxes and this and that. You have to be fully present, and a child in that environment is fully present.

The film seems to have resonated with so many people – there’s something about it that feels real and relatable, and not just because it’s South Africa specific and Cape specific and even Bishops specific, because the response has been global.

I feel a lot for Bishops, and it is a good community. To be honest, I have not been doing any interviews with anybody, but I felt like I wanted to do this one. The funny thing is that all the time on phones and computers and all that stuff are directly opposed to the work in nature – it’s unbelievable how much it takes away from it. It can easily just get swamped and that fragile connection, that ability that your son has, to see that octopus, gets taken away in a second. You can’t believe it. It’s very powerful, but it’s very fragile. So my main assignment really is to keep that bond in place because that’s the most valuable thing for me. I cannot write properly or communicate properly unless that bond is in place. And it’s a lot of work to keep that, that wild connection. And that’s what people felt in the film and felt in the book. A five-year-old has got it.

It’s a natural thing of 10 million years of evolution. Every human should have it. It’s just that our strange society is structured in a way where it is taking us away from that the whole time and that’s largely why we are in such a mess. I mean, Covid is directly related to biodiversity loss, and so much about the environmental crisis is because of the disconnection from nature. When people are connected to nature, there’s no way to decimate it.

On that note, then, a technical question. How do you allow yourself the time to do the work that you are good at and prioritize, which is your natural work. Do you allocate your mornings or a day or a week to just being in nature and then other specific times for phone calls and computer work? Or are you just very conscious about it every day? 

You’ve got to be very conscious every day and not take too many calls or interviews or anything. Keep that to a minimum because that just eats up the time and psychologically breaks the pattern. To gain any valuable understanding of an ecosystem you have to be close to it and go in every day and document it. So I follow the tide, the wind, the swell. My day is governed by the movement of these natural systems. I try to get into the water when it’s optimum. That may move throughout the day but usually it’s early in the morning and late in the afternoon.

I try and sit there, just going into nature and observing. You then have to quantify all that you have processed, all the imagery. You have to write up your observations, maybe do a little bit of research and try and engage that knowledge. And once you’ve written the story, it then embeds it in your mind and you tend to remember it for many, many years, and then you can add to that. 

I’m going into the sea normally twice a day and you get these tiny little bits of knowledge over the days, weeks and months. Then you try to fit those together into the puzzle and then eventually step into the secret lives of these animals and the ecosystem. It’s a very powerful feeling to get to know them better and better. It’s exciting each time because you don’t know what little piece of the puzzle you might see.

So there’s a lot of discipline required to divide up your life and your workday.

You must prioritize, and you’ve got to have a lot of curiosity for that understanding of the natural system and you’ve got to keep that going. Luckily, it feeds me and I get a lot of energy from it. And, of course, you have to keep cold-adapted, you have to keep healthy. If you get sick it’s terrible because it just stops the work. But I’m very curious now – you mentioned your son had some questions?

He had two questions. How big can an octopus get? And can they bite you or hurt you if you put your hand out to them?

Okay. Interesting. Remember, an octopus is a liquid animal so the size changes enormously. They can telescope their arms two or three times in length, so they can expand themselves tremendously or shrink themselves and get into a little hole. But a very big octopus is about a meter across, or even more than that. They do have a beak and they can potentially give you quite a hard bite, and they have a toxic bite – they have got venom that they can inject you with. But it’s very rare for an octopus to bite a human.

So, if it came to your son, I would generally avoid touching or making contact with animals, but if they want to make contact with you, especially a child, it’s very unlikely they will bite. Especially if it’s in a rock pool, they are not afraid of things outside the water and your son can very safely let that animal in to investigate him, and it can have a profound effect. When that contact happens, a strange transfer happens between the animal and the human, and often this sets up an amazing relationship. 

Octopuses are very curious and they are as clever as a cat or a dog. It’s a highly intelligent, very, very curious animal. They vacillate between curiosity and fear, depending on the individual personality. So that’s their model: the fear keeps them away and then the curiosity calls them, much like cats.

Tell us about your Bishops connections.

The reason I went to Bishops is because my father, Keith Foster (1961O), was there for his whole school career, as well as my uncle, Patrick (1958O). And for the film, Barry Donnelly (1988B) did all the incredible sounds and Kevin Smuts (2004O) did all the music. Kevin just won an enormous award at the IDA Awards, which is huge, and Barry is a world-class sound designer. I’ve worked with him and my brother Damon (1998K) for many films, for over 20 years. So, it was incredible to work with him again and he’s done a phenomenal job on the sound. People always say it’s my film, but it is was a very big team working on the film, an international team from America, from Europe, from England and South Africa. It’s the combined efforts of everybody that makes the film, and I am just part of that.    

What are your memories of school – fond or bad?

Pretty fun memories. I had a lot of fun. We had great sporting experiences, especially with the team sports. It is hard to quantify it all now… it is so different now that you are older. But I had a good experience. It didn’t prepare me for any of this work I am doing now. I mean, no school would unless you were are at some sort of outward-bound school. I had good relationships with a lot of masters, and they were very encouraging, but I wouldn’t say I was the easiest kid to teach. A lot of teenagers are difficult to teach or be with. 

Did you have an inkling that you had a career in filmmaking ahead of you, and any kind of naturalist or environmentalist leanings?

The connection there is Jeremy De Kock (1984W). I was very good friends with Jeremy and of course Brian De Kock (1952O, ex staff). We used to film the rugby and Brian had an edit suite which in those days was rare. Jeremy and I would take Brian’s cameras and make our crazy little films and edit them. Just loops and stuff but it was a good beginning for learning the film language.

My early childhood, before I came to Bishops, was at Bakoven. I think from the age of three I spent about 10 years every day at the tidal pool and diving. Then when I went to Bishops we moved from Bakoven to Rondebosch, because it was too far. That early childhood in that wild Atlantic kelp forest was the thing that greatly connected me to the ocean. I should have done biology or something like that, but you don’t know what your interests or your passions are when you’re at school.

And how did you return to the ocean later?

Well, I was always connected to it. I mean, one thing I didn’t enjoy too much was cricket. I remember in summer just being on that cricket field for hours and hours wishing I was in the ocean. I didn’t break the connection, but it was more of an instinctual thing. I just wanted to be in the ocean as much as I could. It wasn’t something that I was really conscious of, just something I’ve always done and naturally felt pulled to. It was only later in life that I quantified it and started working with it. Winters at school were easier, as it was cold, there was less of a pull to the ocean and there was rugby which I enjoyed. But it was short-lived because of those long cricket days. I feel sorry for anyone who tried to teach me cricket!

And after school – can you give us the potted highlights of your studies and career? Did you study filmmaking formally?

There wasn’t any serious filmmaking school in South Africa then and we certainly couldn’t afford the international schools. So I learned by being in nature. That’s how I learned about filmmaking, and I tried to find a way of translating that feeling of being in wild nature.

I had to do two years of national service back in those days, and I did hands-on work in Cape Town for a bit, then I went overseas and worked in the film industry in England. And then I came back in the mid-90s and started working with my brother, exclusively making films about nature. It’s not that hard to learn how to do a bit of photography and a bit of editing and put stuff together. It’s translating that emotion, that power, that feeling of wild nature. I was privileged enough to spend a lot of time in the wild and that’s what I drew from mostly.

What’s it been like working with your brother for two decades?

Yeah, we’ve had incredible experiences together. We’ve made, I think, 25 films together. We work well together, we kind of know what the other person is thinking. So that’s a long time doing that together. Nowadays I’m more interested in conservation – although the films are very powerful for conservation – mentoring young people, working with the Sea Change Project, etc. 

Tell us a little bit about the Sea Change project.

Well, it came about naturally, with an incredible group of people of different ages, all dedicated to nature. For the first few years, they all worked for free just out of the sheer passion for it. They are a group of very talented divers, journalists, filmmakers and writers. And it’s essentially a group of people who are intensely passionate about the wild, mad about conservation and about finding an innovative way to get that message out. And it ties back to that emotional ecology I was talking about, because people don’t tend to do anything unless they feel it emotionally in their hearts. So, we developed pretty good techniques for translating that real deep emotion for nature – in writing form, in film form, in books and in the newsletter that goes out every month. We’ve done a couple of exhibitions, including a successful one on the Sea Point promenade, and we are going to do a lot of work for outreach, hopefully with the aquarium as soon as the Covid-19 story subsides. It’s a lot of just passing this knowledge on to inspire younger ecologists. We also want to start a little science institute where we can study the octopus and biodiversity, because scientific data is a very powerful tool for conservation as well.

From a practical point of view, how is Sea Change funded and is there any way interested readers can help? 

Like any NGO, you know how hard it is to keep it going, so we do rely on donations and people who care a lot about the ocean. If people are interested and passionate enough, they can quite easily donate on the Sea Change website [seachangeproject.com].

And do you then have a day job in the meantime that brings in a salary?

I am a professional filmmaker, and so I’ve done this film and I’ve been working on one on human origins as well. I had a big exhibition with the Sapiens team led by [internationally renowned archaeologist] Professor Chris Henshilwood. I have done the Sea Change book, I do talks and just following my passion. If I had a day job, there’s no way I could do any of these types of things. If you were to break that connection, I wouldn’t be able to communicate any of this. It doesn’t work. Imagine trying to spend all that time in the water and document all that and then making a film like this for Netflix, which is a monstrous task, it’s a terrifying and monstrous task. Even with this incredible team, it takes an enormous amount of energy and time.

You spend all this time in the water and in nature – at what point did you even realize you were making a documentary? Did you set out to make it?

No, I didn’t set out to do it. It’s hard to identify that point. My main goal was to just document it all I see so that I can become a really good naturalist and a good underwater tracker. It’s hard to remember exactly how far into that process that we started thinking, okay, this could be a film. It’s a very slow process and it evolves, and it’s a long process up to the point where you get the likes of Netflix signing up.  I’ve got so much material, I could make 20 films of different animals from what I have got – it probably wouldn’t be nearly as powerful as MOT but there’s an enormous amount of material and enormous amount of experience with different creatures. It is thousands and thousands of hours, and so what story do you tell? You’ve got so many animals, so many interesting experiences, with whales, with otters and with very unusual exotic fish that live in this environment.

What was it like working with the all-powerful Netflix? At what point did they sign on, and once they did was it like doing a deal with the devil where suddenly they’re in charge or do you still reserve all the creative control?

Well, that’s the great thing about them. Unlike broadcasters in the past, they try not to interfere too much with the strength and the power of the story; they gently guide it along. But you’re dealing with people who are the best in the world, so the bar is very high. So there’s a lot of pressure. They are very good at dealing with you and you are dealing with many different departments as well. It’s taxing. The one call I was on there were about 20 people from the different departments and each one wants different things, which is completely overwhelming. It’s all very nice and all very supportive but it is extremely demanding. And you’re working and working and working, and you might have many rough cuts that you think are quite far along the road, and then you get their notes and realise you’ve got another six months of editing to do.

And now that you’ve produced a Netflix documentary that has been highly successful, do you have more financial and creative freedom to do what you want?

No, it doesn’t matter how well it does. If five people watch it on Netflix or five million, it makes no difference. They buy the film – they own it and that’s it. It’s not liked a book – you get no royalties. The only difference is, of course, the opportunities that arise to do other work.  It’s a strange thing. The whole endeavour, the whole way of looking at it –the finance and the business side is not the priority. It’s the conservation, the love, the passion for the environment…as mad as it might sound, that is the reality of it.

That ties in very much to my next question. The film was released on 7 September last year. What were your expectations the day before release? What was your definition of success for the documentary?

Just getting it on Netflix is a success in itself because that is extremely difficult. We were very, very, very fortunate. I didn’t work on getting them on board. That’s a whole different company in Europe and I know very little about the process. It is extremely difficult to get it on, so that is a big success in itself. Also being the first African documentary on Netflix.

We had no clue that it would be so popular. Nobody did, in fact. I think it was very unusual for Netflix to take a film like that. We were very fortunate to have one person there, an executive who liked the film and ushered it through, otherwise it probably wouldn’t have ever seen the light of day. So, it is a little miracle that it even made it on.

Am I right in saying it’s been seen by a hundred million people?

We don’t know how many people have seen it, but certainly probably many tens of millions. I don’t know the figure. But it’s a lot of people. We had no idea that it would catch the hearts of people like it has. And again, the success is not measured by the awards. It’s the emails and messages we get from young people who have been so disillusioned by the current environmental crisis or Covid or whatever, getting a new lease on life and going back into nature. People who have been isolated and have now got so much from it. And from many older people who get reminded of their experience with their nature. Those are the things that for me measure the success more than anything else – the awards just depend on the judges and the timing and that kind of thing. I am a bit uncomfortable with awards because how can one say one film is better than the other? But the film certainly sparked something, and we had no idea it would. We were worried that no one would watch it!

Craig and his team have been overwhelmed with messages of goodwill since the release of My Octopus Teacher. He greatly appreciates the overall sentiment expressed, which indicates something of the success of the film, but respectfully asks that those who might like to send on further well wishes rather spend some time on the website that reflects so much of his work: seachangeproject.com