weekly newspaper. Film industry experts say there are various elements that need to come together to get a South African film on to the global stage: it needs to be noticed and get good press; it needs to be widely distributed; and – most importantly – it needs to “strike a nerve” in both local and international audiences. My Octopus Teacher, the acclaimed Netflix documentary, became the first South African film to win an Academy Award for best documentary feature this week. The 90-minute film, which tells the interspecies relationship between filmmaker Craig Foster and an octopus living in the frigid waters of the Atlantic Ocean off False Bay, is an “introspective” and “emotive” engagement with the natural world, says Dr Ian-Malcolm