May 01 2009
Aliens among us! Trailer for District 9 hits the airwaves.
Neill Blomkamp. Remember that name, people. Because in a few months, you’ll probably be seeing it everywhere.
Blomkamp is a filmmaker whose style tends to blend a kind of docu-realism with sci-fi elements. His 2005 short film, Alive in Joburg, about an eerie alien encounter in Johannesburg, South Africa, caught the attention of none other than the acclaimed Lord of the Rings trilogy helmer Peter Jackson. The latter was so impressed that he tapped Blomkamp to direct a live-action feature of the video game hit Halo, a project that eventually fell through.
No matter. Blomkamp’s new feature, District 9, a politically-charged “what if” tale in which alien visitors are forced into slum-like internment camps on Earth, promises to deliver a gritty blend of social allegory and sci-fi spectacle that few talents seem capable of pulling off these days.
District 9 is slated for release this August, but you can enter the film’s densely-imagined world via the vividly rich and detailed official website created for the film. And you can watch the knockout trailer for it below.
