Craig Foster

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, for which he won an Academy Award 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 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 techniques from the San people of the Kalahari Desert.

My Octopus Teacher

Foster was the subject, producer, The movie is about his experience diving in the kelp forests at a remote location in False Bay, near Cape Town, in the Western Cape of South Africa. During that time, he found a common octopus 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.

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 In 2021, Foster co-authored the book Underwater Wild with Ross Frylinck.

Awards and nominations Award Date of ceremony Category Recipient(s) Result Academy Awards 25 April 2021 Best Documentary Feature – My Octopus Teacher Pippa Ehrlich, James Reed, and Craig Foster British Academy Film Awards 11 April 2021 Best Documentary – My Octopus Teacher Pippa Ehrlich, James Reed, and Craig Foster Critics' Choice Documentary Awards 16 November 2020 Best Narration – My Octopus Teacher Craig Foster International Documentary Association Awards 16 January 2021 Pare Lorentz Award – My Octopus Teacher Pippa Ehrlich, James Reed, and Craig Foster Producers Guild of America Awards 24 March 2021 Outstanding Producer of Documentary Theatrical Motion Pictures – My Octopus Teacher Craig Foster

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) My Octopus Teacher (2020, producer, cinematographer, subject)