Celebs Applaud South Africa’s Oscar Win

South African documentary, My Octopus Teacher, won the Oscar for Best Documentary Film at the 93rd Academy Awards held on Sunday evening, 25 April, and Mzansi’s famous faces have chimed in to celebrate the victory.

The film has won more than 20 international awards and co-directors, Pippa Ehrlich and James Reed, have said they are “overwhelmed” by an “honour [they] never dreamed possible”.

Social media was flooded with messages of congratulations and the film quickly started trending on Twitter.

Of those sending love online were some of Mzansi’s famous faces, and included the likes of Loyiso Bala, Lady Zamar, Siv Ngesi and Nick Hamman.

Bala tweeted: “Huge Congratulations to the Proudly South African #MyOctopusTeacher for winning Best Documentary at the #Oscars!” while radio personality Hamman praised the team for putting “another South African Oscar in the bag”.

Both Zamar and Ngesi posted about how proud they are to be South Africans in relation to the win, and veteran musician Sipho “Hotstix” Mabuse said it was “amazing news” and commended all involved.

Gavin Hood, who won his own Oscar for Tsotsi in 2006, also added congratulations, calling the film “profoundly compassionate, deeply insightful and visually stunning.”