I was itching to see some new directors at this edition of Fantasia. Festivals are the best places to discover hidden gems, and this edition of Fantasia 2026 I immediately homed in on You Are the Film. From Makoto Ueda, who is the same writer who gave me 2 favourite lo-fi sci-fi gems already, namely Beyond The Infinite Two Minutes and River (2024), comes now his directorial debut with even some familiar faces.
Which genre? Yes.
A play write (Marika Ito) and a songwriter (Kai Inuwaki) are each going through a crisis individually, when their realities collide as each of them attends a film screening regarding each other lives. They seem to be able to converse with each other through the big screen. Soon they discover that they’re not just looking at a movie, but a live ‘window’ of each others’ lives as things devolve into chaos as they are trying to help each other through the knowledge they gathered from watching each other’s ‘film’. But is doesn’t stop at that, as we follow the main characters we start to flow through every genre imaginable.
Makoto Ueda is brilliant at writing lo-fi science fiction that is character-led, as we’ve seen in Beyond the Infinite Two Minutes and River. And he brings this charm again with You Are The Film. We even see some familiar faces, a simple aesthetic that complements the story, and the same endearing feeling for the story and characters as in his other writing.
Big stories in a short time
For the length of 68 minutes Ueda takes you away to a fantastical world where you dive into the childlike wonder of how this reality works. And it is wonderful, you get swept away to root for the main characters, and get frustrated at the betrayal they endure while trying to fix their lives and do what they’re passionate about. Stuck in the Japanese/Asian politeness cycle where in both cases the non-confrontational standard causes more people to get hurt, especially our leads, only to pivot suddenly to both an outer-worldly and action-packed reveal at the end.
Ueda is amazing at easing you into one fantastical reality without showing all his cards until the end. Such a heart-warming ending, and a ride where at no point you can predict what will happen next. Beyond the Infinite and River are already two films that I constantly love introducing friends and family to, and You are the Film is being added to that roster,
“That’s why it smells like a salsa-bar in here”
