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We Are Aliens Anime Film Screens at Film Festivals in Canada, Australia, New Zealand in 2026
posted on by Adriana Hazra
MIFF and NZIFF will also screen Kiyoshi Kurosawa's live-action film adaptation of Honobu Yonezawa's The Samurai and the Prisoner (Kokurōjō) samurai historical mystery novel.
OIAF will screen Gekijōban Mononoke Dai-San-Shō: Hebigami (Mononoke the Movie: Chapter 3: Snake God), the third installment of the Mononoke franchise's film trilogy. OIAF will also screen the following short films, student films, and animation for young audiences:
- Atsushi Wada's Chīsana uri bō (little boarlet)
- Honami Yano's Eri
- Daiyu Li's Ji ugoki yama yureru toki (When The Mountains Shook)
- Tomiki Misato's Candy Caries
OIAF takes place from September 23-27, MIFF takes place from August 6-23, and NZIFF takes place from July 29-August 9.
\We Are Aliens centers on Tsubasa and Gyōtarō, two boys who as elementary school students became close friends, but jealousy and misunderstandings eventually drove them apart. Years have passed and the two boys have gone in different directions in life. But when the memories from their past come back, they must face what happened between them years ago.
The film stars Ryōta Bandō (Fureru., live-action How to Train Your Dragon's Japanese dub) as Tsubasa, and Amane Okayama (Blue Giant, live-action I''s, Hirayasumi) as Gyōtarō, when both characters are young adults. Child actors Yūto Maki and Tasuku Nakagome — who were both selected through auditions — voice Tsubasa and Gyōtarō, respectively, when they were younger.
Kadowaki, who created the second BEASTARS season's ending sequence and music videos for YOASOBI, served as the film's planner, scriptwriter, director, storyboard artist, and editor. Yaffle, who previously produced music for Fujii Kaze, Kenshi Yonezu, and others, composed the music. NOTHING NEW planned and produced the upcoming film, and French studio Miyu Productions (Ghost Cat Anzu, A New Dawn) collaborated on the production, after joining on the project in June 2025.
The film screened at the Directors' Fortnight of the Cannes Film Festival on May 14, and screened in competition at the Annecy International Animation Film Festival, which began on Sunday, and is ending on June 27.
Sales company CHARADES licensed the film to the distributors Hooray Films in Taiwan, Shaw Organisation in Singapore, Intercontinental Film Distributors in Hong Kong, and Sahamongkol Film in Thailand. CHARADES is handling international sales of the film.
The staff launched a crowdfunding campaign in November on the Motion Gallery website. The campaign aimed to cover production and advertising costs, specifically to "improve the quality of the work" and to "distribute the film more widely." The campaign ended on March 2 and exceeded its 8 million yen (about US$50,365) target and raised 9,604,510 (about US$60,467) yen.
NOTHING NEW is a small film company that was founded in 2022 with the aim "to create a world where talent is not crushed."
Sources: OIAF's website, MIFF's website (link 2), NZIFF's website, Comic Natalie
