Oscars: Japan Picks Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s ‘All of a Sudden’ as Best Int’l Feature Submission

Japan has selected Ryusuke Hamaguchi ’s luminously cerebral French-language feature All of a Sudden as its submission for the best international feature category at the 99th Academy Awards.

The Motion Picture Producers Association of Japan, known as Eiren, announced the choice Wednesday. It marks the second time a Hamaguchi film has represented Japan at the Oscars , following Drive My Car , which was selected five years ago and went on to win best international feature while also earning nominations for best picture, director and adapted screenplay. Related Stories TV Sky Orders "Second Chapter" of Rafe Spall-Starring Crime Drama 'Under Salt Marsh' TV Sky U.K.'s Meghan Lyvers Discusses IP, Original Content Mix and "Increasing the Emotional Stakes"

All of a Sudden premiered to acclaim at Cannes in May, where co-stars Virginie Efira and Tao Okamoto shared the best actress prize. The win made Okamoto the first Japanese actress to receive Cannes’ best actress honor.

Set largely at a nursing home outside Paris, the film stars Efira as Marie-Lou, the facility’s director, who is attempting to introduce a compassion-based approach to elder care amid chronic understaffing and resistance from some of her employees. A chance encounter brings her into the orbit of Mari (Okamoto), a Japanese theater director with terminal cancer, and the two women form an intense friendship that reshapes both of their lives.

In his Cannes review, The Hollywood Reporter ‘s chief film critic David Rooney called All of a Sudden “a work of deeply affecting humanism,” praising its “luminous moments of human connection” and concluding that “the payoff is worth it” despite the film’s three-hour and sixteen-minute runtime. The critical consensus on the Croisette was similarly effusive.

As with Drive My Car , All of a Sudden could be a strong multi-category contender at the 99th Academy Awards. Neon, which will release All of a Sudden in the U.S. on Nov. 25, plans to campaign for Efira for best actress and Okamoto for best supporting actress, THR reported Tuesday. The distributor will also push the film for best picture, director and adapted screenplay.

Hamaguchi co-wrote All of a Sudden with Léa Le Dimna, drawing loosely from When Life Suddenly Takes a Turn , a best-selling Japanese nonfiction collection of letters between philosopher Makiko Miyano, who was living with terminal cancer, and medical anthropologist Maho Isono. The film is a France-Japan-Germany-Belgium co-production.

Hamaguchi, 47, has swiftly become one of Japan’s most internationally decorated filmmakers over the past decade. Along with his Oscar win for Drive My Car , he won Cannes’ screenplay prize for that film, the Silver Bear grand jury prize in Berlin for Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy in 2021 and Venice’s grand jury prize for Evil Does Not Exist in 2023.