‘One Cut of the Dead’ Director Ueda Shinichiro on Turning a Microdrama Into Tokyo Feature ‘Earthlings in Love’ — SkimNews
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- Ueda Shinichiro chose the vertical format before developing the screenplay for “Earthlings in Love,” which is screening in the Nippon Cinema Now section of the 39th Tokyo International Film Festival.
- Earthlings in Love follows Shinpei, a director who discovers he has young-onset dementia and returns to a teenage film project to record his memories; Ueda based the premise partly on old schoolmates’ conflicting recollections of shared events.
- Ueda Shinichiro said enthusiastic online reactions to the original 30 short social-media episodes prompted him to pursue a feature-length theatrical version of “Earthlings in Love.”
- Earthlings in Love expanded the social series’ 76-minute total runtime to 111 minutes, restoring omitted shots and lines, adding reshoots and cutting cliffhanger material used to drive viewers to the next episode.
- Ueda Shinichiro used the vertical frame’s deliberately omitted information to encourage viewer imagination and connect the narrowed image to dementia symptoms that can limit vision.
- Ueda Shinichiro said his cast’s feature-film experience produced feature-level performances despite the more exaggerated style he associates with short vertical dramas, and that only the aspect ratio changed from his usual feature approach.
- Ueda Shinichiro argued that vertical shorts and cinemas will continue to coexist, describing Japanese theaters as a phone-free ritual in which audiences sit together in darkness for two hours.
Why it matters: The 30-part social series totaled 76 minutes, while theater audiences receive 111 minutes with restored shots and dialogue, reshoots and no episodic cliffhangers. Ueda Shinichiro also turns the vertical crop into a narrative device for young-onset dementia, making the format carry the film’s memory logic rather than merely dictate its shape.
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