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Aliens Occupy the Earth in Neill Blomkamp's New Short Film, 'Rakka'

Sigourney Weaver leads a band of rebels, and that's just the beginning of the latest from the man behind 'District 9' and 'Chappie'.

Humanity is outgunned, outmatched, and enslaved in a gritty new short film from South African South African science fiction wunderkind Neill Blomkamp. Conquering aliens called the Klum are crushing us under their goopy, nanotech-enhanced boot heels in Rakka, and with humanity backed into a corner, the future looks bleak. Psychopaths are the most competent survivalists, suicide bombing is normal, and a scrappy band of rebels led by Sigourney Weaver are our only hope.

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The debut short from Blomkamp's recently-announced venture, Oats Studios, is a reversal of themes from the apartheid metaphor District 9. Human beings are the oppressed, representing occupied populations. If the current political climate hasn't soured your taste for dystopia, the 20-minute sequence of vignettes is a great watch.

Blomkamp wants to make more shorts, and he's betting the future of the world he's created on a new production model. "I could have just written Rakka, and went to Hollywood," he told The Verge. "I don't want to do that." Instead he's put the film on Steam, as well as YouTube, where admirers can choose to purchase it if they want. Beyond Kickstarter crowdsourcing, this is closer to the Bandcamp model of offering it for free and hoping people love it enough to want more. "We just have to see if the audience gets behind us in order for us to tell more of these stories," he says.

Watch Rakka, in full, below:

To support Oats Studios, purchase Rakka on Steam here.

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