Walker Dialogue: Ryūsuke Hamaguchi with Andréa Picard

Ryūsuke Hamaguchi will be at Walker Cinema on Friday, October 23, for a conversation with TIFF curator Andréa Picard. It's part of the Ryūsuke Hamaguchi: Effect and Cause retrospective, which the Walker is copresenting with the University of Minnesota's Department of Asian & Middle Eastern Studies and the Mary Griggs Burke Endowment in Asian Studies.

If you're not familiar with the name, Hamaguchi is one of the most inventive voices in contemporary cinema. He graduated from the University of Tokyo and Tokyo University of the Arts, and he won the Academy Award for Best International Feature Film for Drive My Car (2021), which was the first Japanese production ever nominated for Best Picture. That same film also took home Best Screenplay at Cannes.

His filmography stretches back over a decade, from The Depths (2010) and Touching the Skin of Eeriness (2013) to Happy Hour (2015), Asako I & II (2018), Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy, and Evil Does Not Exist (2023), which won the Grand Jury Prize at Venice. The talk is part of the broader retrospective, so there's a good chance you can catch some of those films around the same time.

This is a Walker Dialogue, the series formerly known as the Regis Dialogues, which brings filmmakers and actors to the cinema at pivotal points in their careers. Past participants include Robert Redford, Steve McQueen, and Christopher Nolan. The conversation starts at 7 PM; tickets are $18, or $14 for Walker members and seniors, and $12 for students.