District 9 was one of my favourite films of 2009, a brilliantly acted, darkly humourous, moving, exciting and original film that was at once poignant and bittersweet whilst also being pretty disgusting, in much the same ways as David Cronenberg's
The Fly but with missile loaded robotic armour! It's also a strangely quotable film and I've called my housemates a 'fokkin prawn' more times than I can recall. Of course there's a message and a strong political agenda at work in the film as well, and that seems to be bubbling over into
Neill Blomkamp's next project which we'll tentatively call
AGM Heartland (though that does sound like an American country-rock radio station). http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L-IQdQYTBKU&feature=player_embedded A found-footage style minute long video cropped up in the iPad version of Wired magazine, and the only info attached to the video was the aforementioned title and the fact it was directed by Neill Blomkamp. Whether this is actually the seeds of a campaign to generate interest in his next feature, or another project - be it online or a short - is unknown at present, but there's a lot of intrigue in this tiny little clip, not least of all with the strange, discarded mutant creature discovered in the video, but also the eerie lingering final shots looking towards a distant industrial complex.
Slash Film did a little digging and discovered that a Beverly Hills company called 'Sable Entertainment' registered the trademark 'AGM Heartland' shortly before the issue of Wired was released, and the trademark use is defined as:
"Entertainment services by way of an online website with video, audio and textual content and images featuring characters and storylines about a fictional genetic engineering company that produces genetically engineered and altered organisms"
There's no mention of theatrical use in that description, but perhaps that's because AGM Heartland refers to something included within the film that will be used as an internet base, or maybe this just isn't a film project. Blomkamp's had a few potential projects floating in the ether, and is reportedly working on an original sci-fi for Media Rights Capital called
Elysium. Personally whatever Blomkamp serves up with next I'll be interested...