Avatar (2009 film) Avatar (2009 film) Avatar, marketed as James Cameron's Avatar, is a 2009 American epic science fiction film directed, written, produced, and co-edited by James Cameron, and stars Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldana, Stephen Lang, Michelle Rodriguez, and Sigourney Weaver. The film is set in the mid-22nd century, when humans are colonizing Pandora, a lush habitable moon of a gas giant in the Alpha Centauri star system, in order to mine the mineral unobtanium, a room-temperature superconductor. The expansion of the mining colony threatens the continued existence of a local tribe of Na'vi – a humanoid species indigenous to Pandora. The film's
First on the Moon heroes, then rendered [them] unnecessary to the native land – some have been destroyed, others lost in obscurity, yet others still broken by fear." Julia Vassilieva credits cinematographer Anatoliy Lesnikov and set designer Nikolai Pavlov with a form "... mimicking so successfully the documentary mode" as the reason that "First on the Moon" won 2005 Venice Film Festival award for a documentary." First on the Moon First on the Moon (, "Pervye na Lune") is a 2005 Russian mockumentary science fiction film about a fictional 1930s Soviet landing on the Moon. The film, which went on to win many awards,