What you need to know about ‘My Octopus Teacher,’ Oscars 2021’s best documentary

And the 2021 Oscar for documentary feature goes to … “My Octopus Teacher,” Netflix’s oddly moving look at the relationship that develops between a man and a cephalopod.

In accepting the award at Union Station, co-director Pippa Ehrlich said, “There are many South Africans who are awake in the middle of the night to watch this ceremony. And in many ways, this is a tiny, personal story played out in a sea forest at the very tip of Africa. But on a more universal level, I hope that it provided a glimpse of a different kind of relationship between human beings and the natural world.”

The popular film had established itself as the prohibitive favorite after many viewers and awards-giving bodies found themselves wrapped in its embrace. Its previous wins included honors from the PGAs, BAFTAs, Critics’ Choice Documentary Awards and International Documentary Assn. Awards.

Perhaps it doesn’t have the gravitas of fellow nominee “Collective’s” chronicle of journalists struggling against governmentally sanctioned healthcare corruption and incompetence or “Time’s” story of a woman trying to get her husband released from a 60-year prison sentence, but voters found it easy to immerse themselves in what “Octopus” offered: beautiful underwater cinematography and a unique view of the life (and seeming personality) of the sea creature.

“The production heightens the familiar tropes of the nature-doc genre with its emotional account of a rare bond made between man and cephalopod — in this case, Craig Foster, a South African filmmaker, and a female octopus he encounters on his free dives into the freezing waters of the kelp forest in the Cape of Storms, outside Cape Town,” wrote Steve Dollar in a feature for The Times.

In perhaps the documentary’s signature scene, the filmmakers capture the octopus — which by this time viewers have come to care about — being pursued by a shark. Co-director James Reed told The Times, “It is just absolutely mind-blowing how she outwits the shark ... You wouldn’t dare put it in your shooting script. It’s totally improbable. It’s a testament to a creature with her own individual response to things. She’s been attacked; she’s learned from it.”

Although the film earned significant social media buzz after it launched on Netflix in September 2020, it was not initially pegged as a prime Oscar contender. Indeed, it wasn’t even reviewed by many major outlets, including The Times.

“It’s a great and totally overwhelming honor to be here and thank you so much to the academy,” said co-director James Reed. He closed with an “extra thank you for Craig [Foster]; while it was such an enormous team making this film, in the end, it sort of began and ended with him and it’s his story. And he kind of showed us if a man can kind of forma friendship with an octopus, it does sort of make you wonder what else is possible.”

“My Octopus Teacher” is streaming on Netflix.