Fantasia 2025: I Fell in Love With a Z-Grade Director in Brooklyn Review

This will be one of many reviews during this year’s Fantasia International Film Festival, to keep up with our latest coverage, click here.

Sometimes, one needs to look outwards to find their purpose. This corny sentence applies to writer-director Kenichi Ugana’s I Fell in Love with a Z-Grade Director in Brooklyn. Shina (Mihara) is a popular actress in Japan. Besides the commercial success, she is tired of her career and moves to NYC with her boyfriend, Ren (Nakagawa). However, they found that their first day in the Big Apple was not like the countless romantic films set in the city. They discover that they are in love again, especially because their status and success, but that does not mean anything in the metropolis. Therefore, Shina decides to part ways with him. From there, she falls into a spiral of bad decisions. Landing in a punk bar, she meets Jack (Muñoz), a B-film director in despair who decides to house her in exchange for her leading his next indie horror film.

I Fell in Love with a Z-grade Director in Brooklyn is a genre-bending effort, employing romantic comedy devices to celebrate Ugana’s passion for horror. Jack is a stereotype for a cinephile. He moved to New York City to become filmmaker, now working for a B-horror film company in the city. He has plenty of posters in his living room, and he regularly attends a horror-specific theater, where he lividly responds to the films. Consequently, his latest film marks his first opportunity at directing, and he understands the stakes. He has a small crew and is very aware that he may never reach an A-list production in the industry or a festival selection for his film.

In this sense, the film is about passion. Jack loves horror films, and he loves the idea of finally sharing his ideas with the world. Similarly, it is about Shina rekindling her love for acting. She gets tired of the Japanese industry, especially the lack of respect from journalists for her world. Shina finds the respect and passion for the gig in Jack’s crew, where they record the film on a camcorder to engrave a found footage aesthetic. Besides, they do not have a budget, nor the permits to shoot at Central Park, and the rootless necessity to make their dream come off the paper to shine on the screen. Thus, Ugana designs a film that borrows from its meta sense to spread its passion for the language, including an approach that emulates the guerrilla style of indie filmmaking.

At the end, I Fell in Love with a Z-Grade Director in Brooklyn may feel unidimensional. It lacks development in its supporting characters, but Ugana creates a love letter to independent filmmaking. The relationship between his central dynamic is crucial to guide this gem to its emotional core. Once, Shina and Jack represent the filmmaker’s love for the game, and he portrays a story of when romance crosses the film passion, together, they create a beautiful love story.

still courtesy of Vandalism Co., Ltd.

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Pedro Lima

Brazilian film writer. He is also a producer and executive producer for Zariah Filmes. Member of the International Film Society Critics Association (IFSCA), International Documentary Association (IDA), and Gotham and Media Film Institute.