"Neill Blomkamp is a terrifically exciting young director," says producer Peter Jackson, who shepherds Blomkamp's debut feature film, 'District 9'.

"We were considering a production of 'Halo', based on the video game. That movie never happened, but we loved working with Neill so much that when he pitched us 'District 9', we decided it would be fun to turn his idea into a feature film."

In 'District 9', Blomkamp deftly creates a film with an original vision and unique method of telling its story.

After cutting his teeth as a visual effects artist and director of music videos and commercials, Blomkamp makes his feature film directorial debut, drawing inspiration from classic science fiction films as well as the Johannesburg of his youth (Blomkamp was born and raised there before relocating to Canada). The result is a film that breaks ground with a new, thrilling voice.

From the very beginning, Blomkamp intended 'District 9' to be unconventional and to blur the lines between filmmaking styles. "Essentially, the film bounces from our story, which is obviously fictional, to a sort of ultra-real mode," explains Blomkamp.

Dramatic scenes, mockumentary footage, real news video obtained from the South African Broadcasting Corporation — "it's all part of the same story," Blomkamp continues. "The movie fluctuates between something that feels like a film and something that feels bizarrely real."

"'District 9' is set in an alternate history," says Jackson. "Imagine over 20 years ago, over a million alien refugees arrived on earth in a derelict spaceship. They are benign — more than that, they are helpless. They can't even feed themselves and have no particular desire to do anything. They come to Johannesburg, of all places, and the government doesn't know what to do with them, so the aliens end up in a township very similar to Soweto. And for over 20 years, humans have been trying to solve the alien problem."

Blomkamp says the film mimics the 24-hour news feed that cable channels, the internet, and other news sources feed us every day. "It used to be that you would pick up a single newspaper story. Now, the imagery is always there and we have become used to it," says Blomkamp. He also points out that the advent of reality television blurs the lines between reality and entertainment even further.

The genesis of 'District 9' lies in a short, low-budget mockumentary called 'Alive in Jo'burg' that Blomkamp shot in a Johannesburg shantytown a few years ago. In the short film, Blomkamp introduces intergalactic aliens to the cultural mix of Johannesburg, one of Africa's most dynamic cities.

For that film, Blomkamp hit the streets with a camera crew, looking to capture reactions from real people. Blomkamp soon discovered that his idea of intergalactic refugees suddenly arriving on the city's doorstep dovetailed with the real conflict and xenophobia prevalent amongst the citizens of Johannesburg towards the influx of illegal aliens from neighboring countries.

The honest reactions he captured on camera brought a vitality to the short film, blurring the line between fiction and reality. Of the short, Blomkamp says: "I was not intentionally trying to deceive the people we interviewed. I was just trying to get the most completely real and genuine answers. In essence, there is no difference except that in my film we had a group of intergalactic aliens as opposed to illegal aliens."