"I think we should apply the Humanitude method in the cinema industry, and even extend it to all of society"estimates Japanese director Ryusuke Hamaguchi, in competition at Cannes

Japanese filmmaker Ryusuke Hamaguchi, 47, returns for the third time in competition at the Cannes Film Festival with Suddenly. Presented on May 15, the film will be released in theaters on August 12, 2026.

Met at a round table in Cannes a few days after the presentation of his film, which was very well received, the Japanese filmmaker looks back on the adventure that was the making of this feature film shot in France with Virginie Efira.

“From the start, I did not have the intention of shooting this film in France, it is what we would rather call a chain and succession of events which brought me to Paris”says the director. The film is inspired by an epistolary exchange between the philosopher Maoko Miyano, suffering from terminal breast cancer, and the anthropologist Maho Isono. “In this original work, we truly see an almost soul-level meeting between these two women. Their exchanges were still extremely intellectual and abstract, and therefore the adaptation to the screen was complex”continues the director.

Some time later Ciné-France approached the Japanese director and offered to make a film with them. “At that moment I had the click. I said to myself obviously, in France, there is this tradition, with directors like Jean Eustache or Éric Rohmer, of a very verbal cinema, which is appreciated, so if I wanted to make a film in that format , France was a bit of an ideal place.”

From there, he looks for a theme “common between Japan and France”, and thinks of Humanitude, a subject that has fascinated him for around ten years, a method of caring for elderly people with cognitive disorders developed in France, but which has been exported to Japan. “Often the elderly are not cooperative, because they have cognitive disorders, but since care is absolutely necessary, we force them, and we treat them like objects. We consider that they have lost their intelligence or their spirit, when in fact there are things that remain”explains the director.

The Humanitude method challenges these practices and offers techniques for getting in touch with these people who have cognitive disorders, while respecting them. “I was interested in this method because I find that it is not limited to caregivers and the elderly. I think that we should apply the Humanitude method in the cinema industry, and even extend it to all of society”affirme Ryusuke Hamaguchi.

The director then sets down his suitcases in a Parisian Ephad with garden, in the 15^e arrondissement. “We were able to live in the Ephad during the scouting, which allowed us to create links with the nursing staff, and with the residents, who then acted as extras or played small roles in the film”raconte Ryusuke Hamaguchi.

In the casting, he chose Virginie Efira, whom he greatly admired and who finally convinced him at the casting. “I felt that she had a very open heart. We felt that she was ready to embark on experiments. She herself told me that she was very touched by this scenario.”se souvient Ryusuke Hamaguchi. “She was aware of the difficulty of performing in Japanese, but she was willing to make the effort”. Virginia Efira faced the challenges. “Even Japanese people watching the film might think that she speaks Japanese fluently. And yet, she didn’t speak a word at first. The level she was able to reach is quite incredible, that’s where we also see that her work and her acting are really impressive”, believes the director.

Ryusuke Hamaguchi also happily discovered the working conditions in France. “If we had filmed in Japan, there is one thing that is certain, it is that we would not have had all this exposure time”laughs the director.“More seriously, in Japan filming times are very short, so we prepare everything very carefully, and that leaves little room for improvisation”he explains. “In France, we prepare less, but the teams are therefore very reactive. As I am Japanese, I had prepared well for the shoot, and I benefited from this French reactivity, so I worked in ideal conditions!”he rejoices.

An operation which also allowed him to cultivate chance, a dimension very present in his cinema, once again at the heart of this new feature film. “To be convincing when you want to show chance, you really have to be able to film chance. So, if a bird enters the scene, we let it do it”explains the director.

“The most important thing is what happens to the body of the actors. They have their dialogues and they soak it up. And sometimes there is this moment when the actor is finally completely soaked in and manages to be totally in this dialogue, to really live it, and that’s when something can happen. emotion”, Poursuit Ryusuke Hamaguchi.

“I sometimes see this moment of emotion and realize that this is exactly what I wanted, that this is how I wanted this scene, and yet I did nothing to make it happen. My job is simply to position myself in an optimized way to ensure that I can record this moment of thanks”.

Ryusuke Hamaguchi

à franceinfo Culture

This new film by Ryusuke Hamaguchi is undoubtedly the most overtly political in his filmography, even if this dimension was not in his intentions. “My films are rather inspired by personal experiences, personal anxieties or personal fears, motivated by feelings, feelings”confides the director. “And so I think that it is not me who has become more political but rather that it is our society which has become more political”he continues. “With the changes we are experiencing, we can no longer live our daily lives as we have done until now. A change is necessary”estime Ryusuke Hamaguchi.

In a very long scene from the film, Mari, a Japanese director, explains capitalism to Marie-Lou, the director of Ephad played by Virginie Efira. “But she is not particularly trying to convey a personal message, she is just analyzing what capitalism is and I think that whatever her ideas or ideologies, anyone, objectively, will be able to agree on what she is saying.”estimates the director, who is delighted with his presence, “plus décontractée” than during his previous visits to the Cannes Film Festival.