How do you follow My Octopus Teacher? With crocodiles, otters and a new book | Environment

Uwhen the movie My octopus teacher aired on Netflix in 2020, it was a huge overnight success, continues to win an Oscar next year for best documentary. The simple yet touching story of the tender relationship between filmmaker Craig Foster and his young underwater companion has captivated audiences around the world. some, like Sir Richard Bransoneven gave up eating octopus after watching the movie.

Yet for Foster himself, the overnight fame was emotionally draining. “You’re working on this little story that you think a few people might be interested in, and suddenly you’re in front of 100 million people,” he says. “I didn’t think it would affect me so much, but it was very difficult. Terrifying, frankly.”

His oceanfront house in Simons Town, South Africa burned down a year and a half ago and he lost everything. But that was nothing, Foster says, compared to the blind terror he felt after being exposed to such a huge television audience. It was so different from the quiet life he led along the shores of the underwater kelp forests, and he couldn’t handle it, he says. His mental health suffered and he had trouble sleeping for months.

But his love of the ocean didn’t change, and in part his daily sea dives helped restore Foster’s inner strength and poise.

Now he’s resurfaced, not with a new movie, but with a book, Amphibious Soul, to be published next week.

It’s a memoir, he says, but also a video diary with a QR code that lets readers connect to dozens of Foster’s short films—footage of wildlife and the natural world that he’s collected over decades.

Foster hopes to “awaken the wild side” in people and get them to connect more with nature and species, even if they live in cities – see how foxes have managed to survive in cities against all odds, he suggests.

However, many of the stories in the book focus on animals that most people will never come into contact with. But Foster sees her role as “trying to translate what these animals have taught me.”

Foster was 15 years old when he had his first face-to-face encounter with a giant octopus.

He had taken a boat with a friend to a part of the South African coast that is usually too rough for swimming. But the day was calm, he recalls. He took a deep breath through his snorkel and jumped off the boat, diving about six meters (20 feet). Suddenly he became aware of something large looming beside him and saw through his mask a creature with a “bright orange head the size of a rugby ball” and huge tentacles.

“He grabbed my arms and dragged me into his lair,” says Foster. “I just knew – if I’m struggling, I’ve had it.”

So he relaxed his body and let himself be pulled down.

Fortunately, Foster was able to hold his breath. After about a minute, the octopus released its grip and the teenager was able to float to the surface.

It’s an experience that would traumatize most people, but Foster felt a strong connection. “I couldn’t wait to get back in the water,” he says.

In the book, he also describes the time he tracked down a 4.5m Nile crocodile, considered one of the world’s most dangerous predators, and followed it to its lair.

“When you’re faced with what people have imagined as this incredibly scary monster, and it turns out to be this magnificent creature, you lose your sense of fear,” he says.

In another short film, we see an octopus pinch Foster’s camera and turn things around, with the animal filming the man. This is a metaphor for the book, Foster believes, in the sense that “we all live a kind of double life.”

“We’ve forgotten that we’re wild animals in the ecosystem,” he says.

Foster also talks in the book about his experience working on the ground with indigenous people across Africa and learning to follow along with them.

“They have a much deeper sense of what life is about because they have a deep connection with wildlife,” he says. “We need to listen to them and learn from them.”

For Foster, the human connection with animals is key. Although he says he won’t make another octopus movie, he meets a wild otter. He described feeling “a huge mix of emotions – love, gratitude and a bit of confusion” when she reached out a paw to caress his face.

Could this be My Otter Teacher in the making?