ABSTRACT
This chapter commences a combined in-depth analysis of the selected films, with District 9 as its primary case study. The film focuses on Wikus Van Den Merwe, a Multinational United (MNU) official who is being interviewed about the corporation's relocation programme in Johannesburg's 'District 9'. The chapter considers the movies' filmed sites and the relationship of their creators to them; how this affects the final product, especially with regard to narratives of environmental devastation as a civilizational allegory, as well as an alternative history of cinematic industrial design. It also explains how the films' principal cinematic characters craft dystopian tales about racism, surveillance and governmental control that lead to forced migrations. Such cinematic tourisms are filmed and enacted in slums, where outcast characters are transferred to become segregated from the rest of society. The filmed slums engage filmmakers with past, present and potential future realities in various ways, while always negotiating their status as insiders and outsiders.
