Hamaguchi’s French Debut ‘All of a Sudden’ Stuns Cannes With 7-Minute Ovation, Longest of the Fest So Far

Japanese auteur Hamaguchi Ryusuke‘s first French-language film, “All of a Sudden,” premiered in competition at Cannes on Friday to a seven-minute standing ovation, the longest of the fest so far.

The three-hour-plus drama — about two women brought together by terminal illness — moved the audience in the Palais greatly, with many viewers weeping openly during the credits. Hamaguchi looked visibly moved as his leads, Virginie Efira and Okamoto Tao, wiped away tears of their own. Other celebrities attending the screening included Riley Keough and Eric Cantona.

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“Thank you for staying with us for this long movie,” Hamaguchi told the crowd through a translator as the applause died down. “This film would not have been possible without the great actors and crew.”

In “All of a Sudden,” Efira plays the director of a Parisian nursing home operating under the philosophy of “humanitude” — a French approach to care that places the dignity of each patient at its center. Okamoto plays a terminally ill Japanese theater director whose arrival at the facility draws the two women into a deepening bond that transforms her counterpart’s understanding of what it means to truly care for another person. The supporting cast includes Marie Bunel and Jean-Charles Clichet.

The film is loosely inspired by a real-life published correspondence, “You and I – The Illness Suddenly Get Worse,” by Makiko Miyano and Maho Isono. Hamaguchi, who co-wrote the screenplay with Léa Le Dimna, spent two years developing the project in France, traveling between Tokyo and Paris and conducting actor workshops to familiarize himself with how French performers approach text. The film was shot on location in both Paris and Kyoto.

In a previous interview with Variety, Hamaguchi said he first encountered Efira through her work with Paul Verhoeven, particularly “Benedetta,” and that the prospect of working with her made him “really eager and happy.” He has described the source letters as the only material that genuinely moved him enough to pursue in the years since “Drive My Car.”

It marks Hamaguchi’s third appearance at Cannes, following “Asako I & II,” which competed in 2018, and “Drive My Car,” which won three prizes at the 2021 festival — best screenplay, the Fipresci Prize and the Prize of the Ecumenical Jury — before going on to receive four Academy Award nominations and win best international feature. “All of a Sudden” is his first French-language film and his first film primarily set outside Japan.

North American rights are held by Neon, which will release the film theatrically. Asian sales are handled by Bitters End. The film opens in Japan on June 19 and in France Aug. 12.