Not since the epic socio-political drama of Cry, the Beloved Country on the Hollywood big screen that highlighted South Africa’s horrendous domestic woes and Black-White social conflicts has the country been honoured with an Oscar award.
While the country’s 55-million cosmopolitan citizens were sleeping after the Covid-19 midnight curfew to 4am, three South Africans were at the podium of at the 93rd Academy Awards, to receive the coveted trophy in the Best Documentary Feature for My Octopus Teacher. The documentary succeeds in shattering the human myth that an octopus is alien animal or sea-going species. The film was entered as a 2020 Netflix Original documentary film – it was co-directed by Pippa Ehrlich and James Reed. The unique storyline chronicles and documents the 12 months that were spent by film-maker Craig Foster, in which he forged an extraordinary relationship and bonding with a wild common octopus in a kelp forest inside the country. The song and dance jive of Jerusalema got endorsed by President Cyril Ramaphosa, at the height of the surge of the Covid-19 scourge in 2020, and became a top-selling global hit-maker around the world with diverse communities dancing to the rhythmic beats of our hugely popular home-brewed tsunami tune.
