The charming and bluff documentary filmmaker Craig Foster had run out of options by 2010. For twenty years, he had been producing documentaries. He co-directed The Great Dance: A Hunter’s Tale (2000), a groundbreaking and multiple-award-winning exploration of the native San people in the Kalahari desert, and did so with success. Yet he had begun to lose his normal vigour.

Instead of whining, Foster made the decision to go scuba diving every day in a chilly kelp forest close to his Cape Town, South Africa, home. He came across a common octopus that was hiding from sharks during one of these dives. Foster had an idea after witnessing such intricate and captivating behaviour. For the following year, he visited the octopus and followed her whereabouts. As time passes, the octopus