INFORMATION
Director: Ryusuke Hamaguchi
Year: 2021
Duration: 197’
Language: VOSE
Genre: Drama
SYNOPSIS
Yusuke Kafuku is an actor and theater director. He is married to Oto, who is a playwright. They are a happy married couple, but suddenly Oto disappears leaving a secret behind. Two years later, Yusuke accepts a director’s job at a theater and heads to Hiroshima driving his car. There he meets his assigned chauffeur, Misaki, who is a woman of few words, but with whom he ends up getting along. While sharing his time with her, Yusuke realizes things he had ignored about himself.
DIRECTOR’S BIOGRAPHY
After graduating from the University of Tokyo, Hamaguchi worked in the commercial film industry for a few years before joining the graduate film program at Tokyo University of the Arts. He made his festival debut in 2008 with his graduation film Passion in San Sebastian and Tokyo (FILMeX). His films include the Japanese-Korean co-production The Depthts (2010) and a series of documentaries (Tohoku Trilogy) co-directed with Ko Sakai from 2011 to 2013. In 2015, his 317-minute feature Happy Hour won major awards at numerous film festivals including Locarno. His first commercial feature, Asako I & II was selected to compete at the 2018 Cannes Film Festival. He is also the screenwriter of Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s The Spy’s Wife, which won the Silver Lion at the 2020 Venice Film Festival. This year he won the Grand Special Jury Grand Prix in Berlin with Guzen to sozo. Drive My Car (2021) won the Best Screenplay Award and the FIPRESCI at the Cannes Film Festival.