Time - USA (2020-11-30)

26 Time November 30/December 7, 2020

and how that quest led to his emotional and intel-

lectual growth. “She taught me humility,” he says,

while grazing on a postdive snack of whole-grain

toast with butter. “She taught me compassion. She

opened my mind to just how complex and precious

wild creatures are.”

Celebrated for his groundbreaking 2000 film,

The Great Dance, about the San bush hunters of

the Kalahari Desert, Foster found himself in 2011

burnt out and physically wrecked by the stress of

trying to survive as a nature-documentary film-

maker. He felt like he had lost his connection to

the world around him, he says, and even to his own

family. He recalled the San hunters’ deep immer-

sion in nature and realized that was what was miss-

ing in his life. “I desperately wanted to have that

feeling,” he says. “If I could spend every day in a

wild environment, how well could I get to know it?

Could I learn to read tracks like the hunters in the

Kalahari? Could I predict animals’ behavior?”

Rather than go to the desert, he turned to the

sea at his front door, and vowed to free-dive every

single day for 10 years. Braving frigid waters and

epic storms, Foster has rigorously kept that com-

mitment. The experience has been transformative,

he says. “The cold calms you. It fills your brain

with these feel-good chemicals. And then you’re

in this golden forest, this liquid environment that

hasn’t any gravity. And that becomes your under-

water home, especially if you’re visiting it every

d a y.”

It was only several years into his promise that

the strange behavior of a small speckled octopus

sparked his curiosity, and kept his attention for the

duration of her short life. By studying her actions

and observing her learn, play and recover from in-

jury, he applied lessons to his own life—even knit-

ting together a fractured relationship with his son.

While Foster documented every dive with

a video camera, he did not set out with a plan to

make a film. His goal was to better understand the

complex ecosystem at his front door and, in doing

so, draw attention to what he calls the Great Afri-

can Sea Forest, a 1,200-km-long stand of golden

sea bamboo, or kelp, along Africa’s southwestern

coast. One of only eight kelp forests in the world, it

is vital for ocean biodiversity but little known out-

side of conservation circles.

In order to safeguard the region, Foster co-

founded the Sea Change Project in 2012. “The idea

was to get this Great African Sea Forest, the home

of the octopus teacher, recognized as a global icon,

like the Serengeti or the Great Barrier Reef,” he says.

Foster is hoping that the success of My Octopus

Teacher, which was backed by his NGO, will effec-

tively brand the sea forest in the popular conscious-

ness. “You have to name a place in order for people

The dense kelp foresT off The souThern

tip of South Africa is home to some of the earth’s

most diverse sea life, including sharks, rays and,

once upon a time, a common octopus that has just

had an uncommon run as the star of the Netflix

documentary My Octopus Teacher.

Her onetime den lies a couple of dozen feet off

the coast of Cape Town suburb Simon’s Town. The

octopus is long gone—octopuses rarely survive

more than 18 months in the wild—but her co-star

and “student,” filmmaker Craig Foster, still visits

her former home in daily dives that are as much

about pilgrimage as they are about science. “When

an animal has such an influence on you... you can’t

help but love the environment that made her,” he

says, gazing down at her kelp-forest cove from the

picture window of his cliffside bungalow. “Going

there feels like going home.”

Foster’s land-based home is laden with trea-

sures brought back from his own hunting expe-

ditions. Shells and sea glass colonize the flat sur-

faces. Stacks of abalone shells the size of dinner

plates teeter in a corner. The skin of a small shark

wraps around a driftwood pillar. It’s as if, piece by

piece, he is trying to bring the ocean into his liv-

ing room.

Since it premiered on the streaming platform

in September, the documentary has become a

global hit. Although Netflix does not release viewer

data, it says the film has been in the top 10 most

watched in Israel, South Africa and Australia, as

well as the U.S. Amy Schumer recommended it to

her 10.3 million Instagram followers.

With the same introspective cadences of the

film’s voice-over, Foster muses that in a time of

growing separation from nature, the film has trig-

gered a fundamental human longing to reconnect

with our origins. “Just under the skin we’re still

fully wild. And I think this touches on what it’s like

to glimpse that.”

My Octopus Teacher tells the story of the un-

usual bond between Foster and that wild octopus,

which he encounters while free diving. For more

than a year, Foster follows her on daily dives as she

hunts for prey and evades her predators with an

uncanny ingenuity that calls into question human

assumptions of superior intelligence.

But Foster is no detached observer. He also doc-

uments his own efforts to understand her world

FOSTER

QUICK

FACTS

Commitment

Foster missed

only five days

of his 10-year

commitment

to daily dives.

He made up

for them by

going out

twice the

next day.

Namesake

He has a

shrimp named

after him,

Heteromysis

fosteri, one

of three new

species he

discovered. It

was featured

on the BBC’s

Blue Planet

series.

Big finish

Female

octopuses

can lay up to

100,000 eggs,

but lay eggs

only once, at

their life’s end.

Less than 5%

survive.

Under the sea, filmmaker

Craig Foster found a

deep connection to nature

and a special octopus

By Aryn Baker

TheBrief TIME with ...