District 9
to be nominated for Best Makeup Academy Award?
Locally filmed box-office success
District 9 has recently been nominated on the Academy
Awards long-list in the best makeup category. Being nominated alongside
Star Trek is testament to the calibre of the film that has already
been nominated for Best Screenplay in the motion picture category in
the Golden Globes.
The documentary style film sees a
massive starship bearing the remnants of an alien population settle
over Johannesburg in 1982. After the initial welcome by the humans wears
off 28 years later, the refugee camp where the aliens are located has
become a militarized ghetto district called District 9. Now 2010, the
munitions corp. Multi-National United is forcibly evicting the aliens
who have been dubbed “Prawns”. Operative Wikus van der Merwe is
in charge, but gets exposed to an alien toxin and must rely on two “Prawn”
friends for help.
Safa director, Neill Blomkamp, was
set to direct the film adaptation of the popular video game Halo,
but the prokect fell through. Producer Peter Jackson of Lord of the
Rings fame, then offered $3 million to the director to make whatever
film he wanted and the result was more than well pleasing.
