Craig Foster | |
|---|---|
 Photo of Craig Foster taken by an octopus in 2024 | |
| Nationality | South African |
| Occupation(s) | Documentary filmmaker, naturalist |
| Known for | My Octopus Teacher |
| Spouse | Swati Thiyagarajan |
| Children | 1 |
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.
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. [1] [2]
When making The Great Dance: A Hunter's Story (2000) and My Hunter's Heart (2010), [3] he learned some of the animal tracking techniques from the San people of the Kalahari Desert. [4]
Foster was the subject, producer, [2] and photographer of a 2020 Netflix Original film called My Octopus Teacher , directed by Pippa Ehrlich and James Reed. [5] [6] 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. [7] During that time, he found a common octopus who began to trust him, and he revisited and filmed her every day for that year. [8] Foster started filming in 2010 and the project was ten years in the making. It was the first Netflix Original South African nature documentary. [1]
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 , episode 5. [4] [9]
During the course of his underwater tracking, Foster discovered eight new species of shrimp. One of them, Heteromysis fosteri , was named after him. [4] [10]
Foster is married to Indian documentary filmmaker and environmental journalist Swati Thiyagarajan. He has a son, Tom, by his former wife. [11] [12]
Foster is the co-author of Sea Change – Primal Joy and the Art of Underwater Tracking. [4]
Foster's film projects include: [13] [3]
Jacques-Yves Cousteau, was a French naval officer, oceanographer, filmmaker and author. He co-invented the first successful open-circuit self-contained underwater breathing apparatus (SCUBA), called the Aqua-Lung, which assisted him in producing some of the first underwater documentaries.
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Ava Marie DuVernay is an American filmmaker, screenwriter, and producer. She is a recipient of a Primetime Emmy Award, two NAACP Image Award, a BAFTA Film Award, and a BAFTA TV Award, as well as a nominee of an Academy Award and Golden Globe. In 2011, she founded her independent distribution company ARRAY.
The Sundance Film Festival is an annual film festival organized by the Sundance Institute. It is the largest independent film festival in the United States, with more than 46,660 attending in 2016. The festival takes place every January in Park City, Utah; Salt Lake City, Utah; and at the Sundance Resort, and acts as a showcase for new work from American and international independent filmmakers. The festival consists of competitive sections for American and international dramatic and documentary films, both feature films and short films, and a group of out-of-competition sections, including NEXT, New Frontier, Spotlight, Midnight, Sundance Kids, From the Collection, Premieres, and Documentary Premieres. Many films premiering at Sundance have gone on to be nominated and win Oscars such as Best Picture, Best Director and Best Actor in a Leading Role.
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Encounters South African International Documentary Festival (Encounters) is the premier documentary festival in Africa and one of the oldest film festivals on the continent. It remains one of only a few on the continent that is solely dedicated to the genre. The festival is organised by the Encounters Training and Development Institute. Since its inception, the festival has advanced the currency of documentaries in the country and region, supporting new productions and giving an African platform to international documentaries.
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The following index is provided as an overview of and topical guide to underwater divers:
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