More Vancouver connections for District 9: writer-director Neill Blomkamp

While much of the visual effects work of the documentary-style sci-fi thriller District 9 hails from Vancouver, the writer-director of the film also has a Vancouver connection.

Vancouver-based Neill Blomkamp, originally from South Africa, attended the Vancouver Film School and graduated in 1998. Blomkamp cowrote the film with VFS grad Terri Tatchell.

And the Vancouver connections don't stop there. 3D VFS grad Shawn Walsh served as the visual effects executive producer. Vancouver studios Image Engine, Goldtooth Creative, The Embassy, and Zoic all contributed to the visual effects, which constitute integral components of the film.

The film, produced by Peter Jackson (King Kong, Lord of the Rings), uses the story of a group of alien refugees stranded on Earth, and how humans treat them, to illuminate and explore the complexities of socio-political interrelations between different populations.

Unlike most Hollywood fare in which aliens make a beeline for the United States, the aliens in this film dock their spacecraft over Johannesburg, South Africa.