on May 23, 2007
Here at Short of the Week, we try to bring a wide variety of outstanding shorts to your attention. That said, short film has over the years become by and large an indie medium, so it gets kinda hard. For those who’s preferences lean more towards 4th of July blockbusters than say… Miranda July, we offer up Alive in Joburg for your consideration.
This impressive short takes a documentary form, but it’s definitely no Christopher Guest style mockumentary. Instead it’s got aliens—really realistic looking ones, with mech-style “bio-suits”. Set in an imaginary South Africa where aliens have landed and taken up residence, Alive in Joburg poses as a documentary intent on examining how life has changed for residents there, interchanging interviews with realistic CG. The visuals are excellent and while the film’s attempt to equate the aliens reception by locals with South Africa’s Apartheid era are somewhat transparent, any attempt at social metaphor earns kudos from me.
The director, Neill Blomkamp, is celebrated for his advertising work, and won for himself—based largely on this short I would presume—the directing gig for the new Halo film. I must say, based on this film, it looks like a truly inspired choice.
UPDATE: Alive in Joburg is now an open source film with permission given to freely copy, distribute, and transmit the work through the Internet Archive.
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[...] hails from Spyfilms (also behind the Short of the Week 2007 favorite, Alive in Joburg) who has developed a great reputation for their seamless integration of lo-fi and hi-fi [...]
[...] She and Her Cat—A dreamy anime about a cat’s love for its young female friend. view » 6. Alive in Joburg—Robotic aliens attack downtown Joburg in this ultra realistic short. view » 7. Dog—To a [...]
You can now check out the trailer for Neill Blomkamp’s feature film at:
http://www.apple.com/trailers/sony_pictures/district9/
Nice. I’m looking forward to that for sure.
[...] as many action short films do—cleverly inventing a twist or deploying a new innovation such as Alive in Joburg did. Instead Turbo ignores the concept of limitations. This is standard genre-fare all the way, but [...]
Was very impressed with District 9. Could have just used this as a trailer if the aliens looked the same.
[...] online industry buzzing these past few weeks. The obvious parallels with Neill Bloomkamp’s Alive in Joburg and the following feature District 9 are there. It seems digitally distributing your quality short [...]
[...] new film from Spy Films is always an event. This is the house that brought us Alive in Joburg, which was adapted into an Oscar-nominated film, and Trevor Cawood’s Terminus, which, thanks [...]
[...] The archetype for this type of film is of course Neill Blomkamp of District 9 fame with his short Alive in Joberg, but Fede Alvarez with Panic Attack and more recently Carl Erik Rinsch with The Gift, are members [...]
[...] trace back at least as far as the prototype for this kind of short film, Neill Blomkamp’s Alive in Joburg. Avatar Day’s long and fleeting shots, as well as drab color palate is a method of [...]