One Cut of the Dead director turns his vertical social-media series into a feature

Ueda Shinichiro, director of the cult zombie comedy One Cut of the Dead, has reworked a vertical series into the feature film Earthlings in Love, Variety reported on 28 October 2026. The film screens in the Nippon Cinema Now section of the 39th Tokyo International Film Festival.

The project began as a series of 30 short episodes released on social media, each a few minutes long. Ueda told Variety the episodes ran to 76 minutes in total as released online, and that the re-edited feature runs 111 minutes.

The story follows Shinpei, a director diagnosed with young-onset dementia who sets out to finish a film he began with friends as a teenager. Ueda said the vertical format was decided before the screenplay was written, and that the frame suits single-person shots but makes group shots harder.

No distributor, platform or theatrical release date was named in the interview.