District 9 (2009)
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Cast
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Overview
About the Film
District 9 is a 2009 South African-American science fiction action film directed by Neill Blomkamp, produced by Peter Jackson. When bureaucrat Wikus van de Merwe, played by Sharlto Copley, is assigned to oversee the aliens' forced relocation to a new camp, he is accidentally exposed to a mysterious alien fluid that begins transforming him into one of the aliens, making him the most valuable specimen on Earth to both the government and a Nigerian crime lord operating within District 9. Neill Blomkamp, a South African filmmaker, drew explicitly from his country's apartheid history, and the parallels between the fictional alien segregation and real-world racial oppression were deliberate and unmistakable — District 9 was named after District Six, a real Cape Town neighborhood whose residents were forcibly relocated during apartheid.
Sharlto Copley's performance transitioned brilliantly from an oblivious, somewhat pathetic bureaucrat to a desperate, sympathetic figure fighting for his survival and humanity. The film was made for approximately $30 million and earned $210 million worldwide, received four Academy Award nominations including Best Picture, and launched Blomkamp as one of science fiction's most exciting new voices.





