GIFT: A Live Score by Eiko Ishibashi

Eiko Ishibashi performs her score live to the film GIFT at Walker Cinema on Saturday, November 7, at 7 PM. It's a rare chance to see a composer play their own work in the room with the film it was written for, rather than just hearing the recording over the speakers.

GIFT grew out of the collaboration between filmmaker Ryūsuke Hamaguchi and Ishibashi, who worked together on Hamaguchi's Oscar-winning Drive My Car (2021). Ishibashi invited Hamaguchi to film material around her mountain home in Japan, and that footage eventually became two films: GIFT and Evil Does Not Exist (2023). In a nod to silent cinema, GIFT has no spoken dialogue, relying instead on intertitles and Ishibashi's live musical accompaniment. The music isn't just background here; it's one of the film's primary voices.

Both artists have a long history of working together. Hamaguchi, a University of Tokyo and Tokyo University of the Arts graduate, gained international recognition with Happy Hour (2015) and Asako I & II (2018) before Drive My Car won the Academy Award for Best International Feature Film and earned him a Best Director nomination. Ishibashi won the World Soundtrack Awards' Discovery of the Year and the Asian Film Awards' Best Original Music award for her work on Drive My Car and Evil Does Not Exist.

The screening is part of the Ryūsuke Hamaguchi: Effect and Cause retrospective, copresented with The Cedar and the University of Minnesota's Department of Asian & Middle Eastern Studies. Tickets are $18, with $14 for Walker members and seniors and $12 for students. The performance starts at 7 PM at Walker Cinema.