It was 2 am in Cape Town where Indian environmental journalist Swati Thiyagarajan lives with filmmaker-husband Craig Foster when the win was announced. “We created quite a racket. I bet all our neighbours woke up,” laughs Thiyagarajan, as we get on a call with her, hours after My Octopus Teacher won the Best Documentary Feature at the 93rd Academy Awards. While Foster served as a producer, Thiyagarajan — who has previously authored Born Wild: Journey Into The Wild Hearts Of India And Africa — was the production manager on the project helmed by Pippa Ehrlich and James Reed. “In the run-up to the Oscars, we didn’t feature on anyone’s predictions. The fact that we were nominated stunned us silly. We weren’t arrogant enough to presume a win. It was a local story, but when the film [was acquired by] Netflix, [it caught] the world’s attention,” she says.

The wins at the Oscars, and the BAFTAs earlier this month are probably the perfect culmination to Foster’s journey that started in 2010 when he began free-diving in an underwater kelp forest in False Bay near Cape Town. Through the Netflix feature, the filmmaker-naturalist documented how he forged a relationship with a wild common octopus over a year. Thiyagarajan believes the story resonated with viewers as the pandemic has triggered a perspective shift towards the environment. “After a year like 2020, you can’t take away the context in which a film releases. Our [feature] is about empathy and a beautiful world. The pandemic stems from the destruction of nature’s biodiversity. The past year’s context makes the film more relevant,” she says, before heaping praise on Time, another Oscar-nominated documentary that follows Sibil Fox Richardson as she fights for the release of her husband who is serving a prison sentence for a bank robbery. “It was relevant because of the Black Lives Matter movement, and then Derek [Chauvin, police officer] was adjudged guilty.” 

For her, the win proves that a well-told story will find its audience, no matter the obstacles. “We didn’t have a studio as a crutch. Influencers and activists made the film a talking point.”