I've seen a lot of movies, but this one is my favorite (lol) "We're Little Zombies" Director Nagahisa [Director's Interview Vol.31]

Director Nagahisa is the first Japanese to win the Grand Prix in the short film category at the 33rd Sundance Film Festival for the short film he wrote and directed, ``So We Put Goldfish in the Pool. '' This debut feature film, ``We're Little Zombies,'' is filled with a huge amount of information, yet it is a powerful work that draws in and captivates the viewer. We spoke to director Nagahisa, who created this film with a level of perfection that belies his feature-length debut.

Index

• “Dawn of the Dead” was also my own theme.
• I wrote the script while screaming at a convenience store.
• 1,800 thoroughly pursued cuts
• Staffing starts with respect
• This is my favorite work!
• The era of salaried workers was necessary

“Dawn of the Dead” was also my own theme.

Q: This movie brings to the fore the sense of stagnation and despair that children have today, but I also felt a strong love for them. Why did you choose children as the main characters, as you did in the previous work?

Nagahisa: In my previous work, ``So We Put Goldfish in the Pool,'' I portrayed a 15-year-old, but this time I'm portraying a 13-year-old just before entering adolescence. I like children because they have a flat perspective on society's common sense and prejudices. Also, my own mental age is around 13 years old (lol), so it's important that the words I naturally write are similar to theirs.

Q: When you say 13 to 15 years old, you are a middle school student, but to the director, what is a middle school student?

Nagahisa: Junior high school was the most eventful time in my life, and I think my thinking grew the most during that time. I feel like the experience of thinking about a lot of complicated things gave me the seeds of thought that I can use even as an adult. I think the middle school years are important for people.

Q: There's a line in the previous movie that goes, "We are Dawn of the Dead." In that sense, I think there are some areas in which the themes are in sync, but is that something you are conscious of?

Nagahisa: In my mind, I felt very Dawn of the Dead-like because I was forced to work as an office worker, and that was also my theme. On the other hand, even though I'm a Dawn of the Dead, I'm trying my best and there's an emotional side to me, so I feel like I used the "Dawn of the Dead" motif with great care as a way to honestly express myself.

I've made two Dawn of the Dead movies with no Dawn of the Dead , the previous one and this one, so I'd like to make a third one and call it a "conceptual Dawn of the Dead trilogy" (lol), but... , I've already given it my all (laughs).

I wrote the script while screaming at a convenience store.