‘My Octopus Teacher’ Director James Reed Ties With BBC Studios

Max Goldbart
·1 min read
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EXCLUSIVE: James Reed, director of Oscar-winning Netflix documentary My Octopus Teacher, has struck a one-year development partnership with BBC Studios.

Under the terms of the deal, Reed and his company Underdog Films will work with the BBC’s commercial producer-distributor over the next 12 months, adding to its pipeline of natural history feature docs. Reed will be joined by his Underdog creative partner Matt Houghton.

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The news has been unveiled as the UK’s Wildscreen Festival gets underway, the respected natural history TV festival, and Reed is due to speak on a panel later today.

James Reed
James Reed

He achieved worldwide acclaim with Netflix 2020 doc My Octopus Teacher, about a South African filmmaker who forges an unexpected friendship with an octopus, which went on to win the Best Documentary Feature award at the Oscars. Reed’s past credits include Jago – A Life Underwater and Rise of the Warrior Apes and he founded Underdog in 2015.

BBC Studios Natural History Unit (NHU) Head Jonny Keeling said: “Character and emotional storytelling are at the heart of filmmaking both at the NHU and Underdog Films, so we look forward to developing a number of original, ambitious and compelling natural history features.”

Reed praised the NHU for being “at the forefront of natural history film-making for decades and their further growth in the feature doc market will be a fantastic development for the industry as a whole.”

The NHU has had a hugely successful couple of years, winning commissions from the likes of Netflix, Apple TV+, NBC and HBO and also prepping the likes of Blue Planet III for the BBC.

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