Japanese filmmaker Ryusuke Hamaguchi returns to Competition at the Cannes Film Festival with “ALL OF A SUDDEN,” his first feature since the international breakthrough success of “DRIVE MY CAR,” which won Best Screenplay at Cannes in 2021. Following previous Competition entries “ASAKO I & II” and “DRIVE MY CAR,” Hamaguchi’s latest film once again explores emotional intimacy, human connection and the fragile spaces between people.

“ALL OF A SUDDEN” centers on the friendship between two women: Marie-Lou, a French woman working in an elderly care facility outside Paris and a Japanese theater director confronting terminal cancer. The film is loosely adapted from the nonfiction book When Life Suddenly Takes a Turn: Twenty Letters Between a Philosopher with Terminal Cancer and Medical Anthropologist, written by Maoko Miyano and Maho Isono.

The project marks a notable shift for Hamaguchi, whose new film is a German-Belgian-French co-production partly shot in France and starring Belgian actress Virginie Efira opposite Japanese actress Tao Okamoto. Their onscreen relationship draws inspiration from the real-life correspondence between philosopher Maoko Miyano, who suffered from terminal breast cancer and anthropologist Maho Isono.

Hamaguchi relocated the story to a retirement care facility in the Paris suburbs, where the production spent an extended period filming and living alongside residents and staff. That environment became deeply integrated into the film itself.

“Since we filmed there for such a long time, many of the residents and staff members ended up participating in the film,” Hamaguchi explained. “Filming was a kind of entertainment for many of the residents; some appeared as extras, while others watched from their windows.”

The director’s immersive approach appears central to the emotional texture of the film. According to Efira, the atmosphere of the care facility profoundly shaped her performance as Marie-Lou, a woman attempting to bring the philosophy of “Humanitude” into elderly care. Rooted in empathy and dignity, the concept gradually expands throughout the film to encompass mortality, companionship and the emotional realities surrounding end-of-life care.

Hamaguchi reportedly leans into extended conversations and a deliberately patient rhythm, allowing the emotional bond between the two women to unfold gradually through observation and dialogue.

“I don’t feel like the camera filmed what I was playing or what I was seeking to express, but rather what I was experiencing,” Efira said of the production.

The actress credited much of that immediacy to cinematographer Alan Guichaoua, best known for his collaborations with French filmmaker Guillaume Brac, whose naturalistic visual style appears well suited to Hamaguchi’s intimate storytelling approach.