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.