The aliens did not land in New York or London. They arrived over Johannesburg, their ship hanging above the city, and the humans responded by fencing them into a slum. District 9, released in 2009, turned a science fiction premise into a sharp allegory of apartheid, and it became one of the surprise hits of the year.
Neill Blomkamp
Neill Blomkamp was born in Johannesburg in 1979 and moved to Canada as a teenager. He worked in visual effects and made short films. His 2005 short Alive in Joburg contained the core idea of District 9.
Peter Jackson
Blomkamp was originally attached to direct a film adaptation of the video game Halo, produced by Peter Jackson. When that project collapsed, Jackson offered to produce a smaller feature based on Blomkamp’s ideas. The result was District 9, made for about 30 million dollars.
The story
Aliens, nicknamed “prawns”, have lived for twenty years in a camp called District 9. A private company plans to forcibly move them to a new camp. Wikus van de Merwe, a bureaucrat leading the eviction, is exposed to an alien fluid and begins to transform, forcing him to see the aliens differently.
Sharlto Copley
Wikus is played by Sharlto Copley, Blomkamp’s friend, who had little acting experience. Much of his dialogue was improvised. His performance as a comic, then desperate, everyman won wide praise.
Apartheid echoes
The title recalls District Six in Cape Town, a mixed community destroyed by forced removals under apartheid. The film’s evictions, documentary-style interviews and casual racism recall South African history, as well as wider issues of migration and xenophobia.
Filming in Soweto
The film was shot in Chiawelo, Soweto, in a real informal settlement where residents were being relocated, adding to its realism.
Box office
District 9 earned more than 200 million dollars worldwide, a huge return for its budget.
The Oscars
It received four Academy Award nominations: Best Picture, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Visual Effects and Best Film Editing.
Criticism
The film was criticised in Nigeria for its portrayal of Nigerian gangsters in the camp, and the Nigerian government objected to it. The controversy showed the limits of its allegory.
Blomkamp’s later work
Blomkamp went on to make Elysium, Chappie and Gran Turismo. None matched the impact of his debut.
District 9 put Johannesburg at the centre of a Hollywood genre usually reserved for American cities. Its aliens looked strange, but the eviction trucks were very familiar to South Africans.
