Fantasia Fest 2026: You Are The Film Review

Directed by: Makoto Ueda
Written by: Makoto Ueda

Starring:
Marika Ito – Madoka
Kai Inowaki – Kazuma
Riko Fujitani – Shiho
Shintaro Kanemaru – Mikoshiba
Oshiro Maeda – Kambayashi
Hinako Kikuchi – Yuna
Suzuyuki Kaneko – Tamaru
Mikawa Yuya – Senoo
Nagano Munenori – Worker

Image Credit: Third Window Films

Running Time: 67 minutes
Not Rated

Over the last five years, Makoto Ueda has established himself as the master of the microbudget low-fi time travel film. Ueda, the leader of the Japan-based theater and production company Europe Kikaku, has rightfully become a favorite of festivalgoers for writing the scripts to Junta Yamaguchi’s Beyond the Infinite Two Minutes and River, as well as Daigo Matsui’s Rewrite. All three these films used elements of science fiction and time travel to tell heartwarming, unique and genuinely funny stories about the human experience.

For his first trip behind the camera, Ueda has left time loops behind and embraced a bigger concept. You Are The Film, which premiered at Fantasia International Film Festival on Sunday, is the writer’s directorial debut. While it may lack the intricate set-up of his other scripts, it still contains plenty of the essential elements that make those films a delight to experience.

In You Are the Film, we meet two artists at their own separate crossroads. Madoka (Marika Ito) is the playwriter for a four-person theater company in Shimokitazawa that is starting to gain momentum and is about to perform its biggest show yet. Feeling the pressure to deliver a new and more accessible script, she gets a recommendation from the manager of the establishment her troupe performs art to go see a movie in a nearby theater called the Tollywood.

Madoka enters the empty theater and sits down, watching as her film opens on Kazuma (Kai Inowaki), who is part of a struggling rock band in nearby Sangenjaya. His band is struggling to sell tickets and gets a recommendation to go watch a film. He enters an identical theater with the film already started and finds Madoka staring at him from the screen in her theater.

It doesn’t take long for the two to realize that they can converse with each other through the screen. They are watching each other on film in real-time, which allows them to see each other’s situations from other perspectives and narrative flashbacks. As they begin revealing information only the camera knows to each other, things start to take a wild turn and they find themselves beset by gangsters and even stranger things, indicating their lives may be more than just slice-of-life dramas.

Much like his previous scripts, Ueda shows his talent for getting maximum use of his resources and runtime in You Are the Film. It’s not the kind of science fiction that relies on effects work or technical talk; instead, he lets the extraordinary situation serve as a stage to explore smaller scale human stories. It’s a bit messier than Beyond the Infinite Two Minutes or River when things get into the third act, but Ueda’s focus on the characters serves to keep things grounded.

Key to the film’s success are its two lead actors. Ito and Inowaki are believable and relatable as the two unwitting stars of their respective films within the film, and they establish a surprising level of chemistry through the screens separating them. There’s an easy rhythm in their back and forth, which starts off somewhat irritable but eventually softens the more they interact.

Ueda gets to have a lot of fun with the meta aspects of his story, talking in genres and filmic terms with alternating wit and wisdom. It’s very easy for a film like this to get too impressed with itself or wink too knowingly at the camera, but he resists the temptation. Instead, he focuses on the interpersonal dramas and the very relatable struggle of reconciling one’s passions with the realities of life that may well be out of your control.

It helps that Ueda centers the proceedings in reality through his settings. The charming but mundane bars and theaters are colorful and imbued with just enough personality to provide extra foundation for when Madoka and Kazuma are thrust into matters well over their heads.

You Are the Film does lose its way a little bit when it starts to try and define what’s going on. The story gets a little bogged down, not helped by the presence of a custodian (Nagano Munenori) with some warnings for our protagonists. But in the end, Ueda finds the story’s heart again and provides another in his growing resume of low-key genre gems.

Fantasia International Film Festival takes place in Montreal, Quebec from July 16th through August 2nd.

7.0

The final score: review Good

The 411

Makoto Ueda's You Are the Film makes up for what it lacks in budget with big ideas, likable characters, and a grounded charm. Much like his previous scripts, there's plenty to like here and while it trips up when it tries to delve into the nuts and bolts, the end result is a funny yet affecting little tale about the artist trying to make their mark in the world before its too late, as well as the value of a relationship between films and those who watch them.