This gritty, visually audacious CG-animated urban sci-fi was made entirely on its director’s computer, with his own hands.

It’s the 1980s in an alternate-universe version of Tokyo. A new drug called Golden Monkey is tearing through the city, causing users to turn into what eventually are called ‘shadow monsters’. As these menacing creatures begin to mysteriously materialise on battlefields across the globe, a furloughed soldier named Soji is called on by World Bank employee Haya to help investigate – with suspicion soon falling on an old nuclear accident.

Japanese director Yanakaya is the one-man-band behind his debut feature, which had its international premiere at Rotterdam this year; working on every facet of its creation, Yanakaya collaborated only with some film-school students who lent their voices for several characters. With a visual style that fuses the aesthetic of 90s video games, retro anime, hand-painted matte landscapes and Blade Runner–inspired cityscapes, there’s certainly nothing that looks quite like Battlecry. Don’t miss this impressive feat of DIY innovation.

“An animation oddity … Battlecry’s uniqueness is in its execution.” – Screen Anarchy