Virginie Efira at Ryusuke Hamaguchi: first image
The director of Drive My Car directs the French star in Suddenly.
Five years after causing a sensation with the powerful Drive My Carhonored at Cannes and crowned with the Oscar for best foreign film, director Ryusuke Hamaguchi returns with Suddenly (All of a Sudden).
The Japanese filmmaker notably directs Virginie Efira.
The story of Suddenly will tell the story of the bond between two women: a Japanese theater director and a French caregiver. In detail, Virginie Efira will play Marie-Lou Fontaine, director of a retirement home in the Paris suburbs who tries to introduce a human care technique called Humanitude, despite resistance. Her life is turned upside down when she meets a terminally ill Japanese playwright named Mari Morisaki, who will be played by Tao Okamoto.
The film is loosely inspired by a collection of letters exchanged between the philosopher Makiko Miyano and the medical anthropologist Maho Isono, published in the book You and I – The Illness Suddenly Gets Worse. Hamaguchi accepted the project after being “deeply moved” by the correspondence between the two women. Filming took place in Paris and Kyoto and was completed last September.
The screenplay is co-written by Ryūsuke Hamaguchi and Léa Le Dimna. No release date has yet been announced.
It is a co-production between France, Japan, Germany and Belgium, produced by Cinefrance Studios, Office Shirous, Bitters End, Heimatfilm and Tarantula. Diaphana Distribution will ensure the theatrical release in France.
