Ueda Shinichiro Turns Vertical Microdrama Into Tokyo Festival Feature 'Earthlings in Love'

Director Ueda Shinichiro, best known for the cult zombie film "One Cut of the Dead," has built a reputation on self-reflexive filmmaking. That film shifted from a single-take horror-comedy into a reflection on the act of making movies and then the chaos of being on set. His latest work, "Earthlings in Love," takes that fascination into a new format: the vertically shot, social media-friendly microdrama.

The film is screening in the Nippon Cinema Now section of the 39th Tokyo International Film Festival. It follows Shinpei, a director who learns he has young-onset dementia. Hoping to record his memories, he sets out to finish a film he began making with friends when he was a teenager.

The project started as a series of 30 short episodes released on social media, each lasting only a few minutes. According to Ueda, enthusiastic reactions online encouraged the team to expand it into a feature for theaters. In an interview with Variety, he said the work was not first imagined as a feature, but that his instincts lean toward feature films.

The story draws on Ueda's own experience. He visited his hometown and met old schoolmates over drinks, and as they traded memories he realized they remembered the same events differently, and that some things had been forgotten entirely. He said he wanted to tell a story about the gap between memory and what has been recorded.

Ueda said the vertical frame suits a single person well, though group shots bring challenges and restrictions. He used the format to his advantage by leaving information out of view, which is later revealed from another angle and leaves room for the viewer's imagination. He also noted a link to the subject matter, since some symptoms of dementia limit a person's vision.

Editing changed considerably between versions. The 30 episodes originally ran 76 minutes in total, while the feature runs 111 minutes. Online, Ueda said, a slow pace sends viewers swiping to other content, but a seated theater audience can be held for around two hours, which gave him room to show off the acting. The feature restored shots and lines that had been left out of the social media version, added newly shot material, and dropped some cliffhanger scenes meant to bring viewers back the next day.

Compared with his earlier features such as "One Cut of the Dead" and "Special Actors," Ueda said his approach barely changed apart from the vertical frame. Actors in short dramas often play bigger, he said, but his cast already had feature film experience and performed at that level.

From his earlier microdramas, the main lesson was about audience response rather than technique. Comments fill the platform almost immediately, and he described a scenario in which an idea in the morning could be shot in the afternoon and released that evening, much like posting a tweet. A feature, by contrast, takes at least 12 months to reach theaters.

Ueda expects both formats to last. He believes the market for vertical shorts will keep growing, but that cinemas will remain, because in Japan they are now the only place where people switch off their phones and sit together for two hours. Borrowing a phrase from a senior director friend, he compared theaters to a church or sacred place, a ritual that works in a way nothing else does.