OFFICIAL SELECTION - 2026 CANNES FILM FESTIVAL (Directors’ Fortnight)
OFFICIAL SELECTION - 2026 ANNECY INTERNATIONAL ANIMATION FILM FESTIVAL (In Competition)
Resoundingly well-received at Cannes' Directors' Fortnight 2026, writer/director Kōhei Kadowaki's ravishing anime follows two boys whose inseparable childhood friendship is shattered by a single careless moment - one that changes the course of their lives.
In a quiet Japanese town, awkward third-grader Tsubasa (voiced by Ryōta Bandō) struggles to connect with his classmates, until the gregarious Gyotaro (voiced by Amane Okayama) takes him under his wing. The two quickly become inseparable. But an unforeseen event drives a wedge between them and destabilises the whole classroom's social order, setting off consequences that trail both boys through adolescence and well into adulthood.
Rendered in a dreamlike blend of rotoscoped and hand-drawn 2D animation, Kadowaki's remarkable directorial debut is a bittersweet meditation on lost innocence and the fickleness of memory. Gorgeously realised and quietly impactful, WE ARE ALIENS is a testament to animation's rare capacity to hold beauty and heartbreak in the same frame.