Short Film Saturday: Oats Studios Volume 1: Rakka (2017)

"A tale of a dystopian future where an unknown alien group have colonized the earth and humans struggle to fight back."

Not too long ago we talked about Oats Studios, the passion project of District 9 director Neill Blomkamp.The idea is that he gives himself and other filmmakers a place to put their ideas to film in short form, in hopes that with enough interest, they could eventually be made into feature-length projects.

I'm here to tell you that Rakka is one movie that we'd love to see make that jump.


From its very first moments, Rakka paints a bleak and hopeless picture of a Post-Apocalyptic world in which alien lizards with psionic powers (sounds silly, I know) have all but wiped humanity from the face of the earth, and have begun making the world theirs. Humanity is screwed, but there are those who still fight, hoping to win back their world from the otherworldly invaders. Like Sigourney Weaver.

Blomkamp has given us a short film that not only offers a storyline that begs for full-length feature treatment, but he's once again crated some gorgeous creatures and set pieces, and a Post-Apocalyptic world, that we'd love to see him explore more.

It may not be the most original story idea, but it's visually stunning, and compelling as hell.

This is a proof of concept project, essentially, and so its more of a series of scenes strung together than it is any kind of coherent narrative, but it delivers that proof, and with any luck at all, it will garner enough attention (and funding) to be made into a feature-length film.

We love what this 20-minute long short gave us, and Blomkamp is waiting, so all we need to do is to show it some love.

B+

Head on over to Steam, or the Oats Studios website, to check out more.