The first television spot for the upcoming film Elysium was released Tuesday.

The film is the latest by South African-born director Neill Blomkamp, who made his name with the critically-acclaimed 2009 film District 9. The film featured a race of aliens forced to live in deplorable conditions away from humanity and it notably combined fantasy with an apartheid allegory.

Elysium takes a slightly different tack, although it also has similar elements of separation of the classes.

The film is set in the year 2154, where the wealthy have evacuated a decimated Earth and set themselves up on a space station named Elysium, leaving the rest of society to perish on the planet. With Earth's occupants looking for a way out, Max Da Costa (Matt Damon), a fatally ill man stricken with cancer, makes an attempt to break into Elysium to cure himself.

The space station is, however, under the control of the dangerous leader Secretary Delacourt (Jodie Foster), who send the undercover agent named Kruger (previous Blomkamp collaborator Sharlto Copley) to force Da Costa off of his mission.

Should Da Costa's mission be successful, the film's description reads, "he could save not only his own life, but millions of people on Earth as well."

The film also co-stars Alice Braga, Diego Luna, William Fichtner and Wagner Moura.

The films will likely get connected to many political situations happening in the world. Blomkamp suggested one situation on his own at an April press conference upon the film trailer's release.

"It's a mirror of how the West is now with immigration," Blomkamp said, looking at the policy of entry for the elite space station."A lot of people want to help out the rest of the world, take that wealth and pour the glass half out and balance it on the rest of the planet. Other people want to close the borders."

But the director insisted did not specifically aim to make Elysium a political movie, although it is likened to the arguments behind the Occupy movement.

"If you think you're actually making a difference, you're on pretty dangerous thin ice. But you can put ideas in there that are real issues that happening in the world," the director said.

If I wanted to make something and actually have it make a difference, I would make a documentary."

"The film does speak about topics that really have a big impact on me. But I don't know how much the audience takes away from it," he continued.

Elysium is due out on August 9.

Check out the film's new TV ad and the movie trailer.

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