Neill Blomkamp

Neill Blomkamp is a young South African filmmaker and visual effects specialist recently name-checked on BoingBoing. Check out his crazy Show Reel first; Webheads might have seen his Citroen "Transformers" commercial, which was all over the Web a few years ago.

But most impressive are a couple of short films he directed. TempBot is a mysterious, deep satire on the depersonalization of modern office life. This is an extraordinary piece of work, beautifully cut; the rhythms have the scattershot tension of classic Nicolas Roeg films like The Man Who Fell To Earth and Bad Timing. The soundtrack -- synth, alien, and jarringly mechanical -- is no throwaway, either.

I'm not sure what "Wonder Woman" Lynda Carter is doing in there, but she still looks great playing the lonely, middle-aged neighbor of the title, er, character.

Another superb short is the pseudo-documentary Alive in Joburg, a newsreel style report on how a race of aliens has landed in Johannesburg and the effect they are having on the local population. Alive in Joburg blends RoboTemp's cinema verite feel into a subtle commentary on race and class; this is satire buried so deep as to be almost invisible. Very impressive work.

In case the above link doesn't work, Alive in Joburg is also available here.