[FrightFest 2026]: You are the Film

You are the Film marks the debut of prolific Japanese writer Makoto Ueda, perhaps best known for writing the delightful time loop duo of Beyond the Infinite Two Minutes (2020) and River (2023). And what a debut it is. A brain-scrambling, deeply inventive delight that makes the two timey-wimey works seem positively straightforward by comparison, more magical realist than sci-fi fantasy. 

At the film’s core are a pair of struggling creatives, playwright Maoka (a delightful Marika Ito) and band member Kazuma (a deeply watchable Kai Inowaki) who, separately, attend the same cinema, only to discover that they are each, individually, the subject matter of the other’s film. And not only that but they are able to communicate with each other through the screen and across the different realities they inhabit.

Across 68 minutes Ueda covers a wealth of subject matters, from the fragility of our grasp on reality and the struggle to be a working-class creative in modern society to the trouble that gangsters and aliens can cause. The aesthetic is as bright as Ueda’s previous films, its focus on an underseen part of Japan finding the beauty in the mundane. You are the Film is arguably the most successful exploration of the magic of cinema, which at its core, past the complexities of the plot, is what the film is.

You are the Film is an oft-hilarious watch, a witty, inventive work that finds way to a similarly hopeful note to Beyond the Infinite Two Minutes and River. It’s not always easy to fully grasp the ins-and-outs of the film’s logic or the inner mechanics here, but that doesn’t really matter. You are guaranteed a big smile as the credits roll and a determination to see whatever Ueda works on next. And maybe, just maybe, you’ll be able to free yourself from the walls that surround you and explore a whole universe of possibilities out there.

It’s safe to say this critic loved this one.

4 Screams out of 5