Evil Does Not Exist (2024)
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Director: Ryusuke Hamaguchi Run Time: 106 min. Rating: NR Release Year: 2023
Starring: Ayaka Shibutani, Hazuki Kikuchi, Hitoshi Omika, Ryo Nishikawa, Ryuji Kosaka
Country: Japan
Language: Japanese
About the film:
Winner of the Silver Lion award at the 2023 Venice Film Festival.
Takumi and his daughter Hana live in Mizubiki Village, close to Tokyo. One day, the village inhabitants become aware of a plan to build a camping site near Takumi’s house offering city residents a comfortable “escape” to nature.
“Compositional quirks and unhurried direction turn this tale of a Tokyo company buying up land near a pristine lake into a complex and mysterious drama”
—Peter Bradshaw, Guardian
About the filmmaker:
Ryûsuke Hamaguchi is a Japanese film director and screenwriter. In 2008, Passion, his master’s degree graduate work from Tokyo University of Arts, was selected at the San Sebastián International Film Festival and Tokyo Filmex. In 2021, he received international recognition after earning the Silver Bear Grand Jury Prize at Berlin for Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy (2021) and three prizes at Cannes for Drive My Car (2021) – the FIPRESCI Prize, the Prize of the Ecumenical Jury, and Best Screenplay, which marked the first Best Screenplay win for Japanese filmmakers at the festival. The film went on to receive four nominations at the 94th Academy Awards, winning Best International Feature Film, and was the first Japanese film to be nominated for Best Picture. Hamaguchi’s other features include Intimacies (2012), Happy Hour (2015), and Asako I & II (2018). He also co-directed a series of documentaries with Ko Sakai called “The Tohoku Trilogy” on the survivors of the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake, and co-wrote the screenplay for Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s period thriller Wife of a Spy (2020), winner of the best director prize at Venice in 2020.
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