Walker Dialogue: Ryūsuke Hamaguchi with Andréa Picard

If you have questions about accessibility at the Walker or would like to request an accommodation, please contact Visitor Services at access@walkerart.org or 612-375-7564 at least two weeks before the event.

Ryūsuke Hamaguchi’s early films include The Depths (2010), the Tōhoku Documentary Trilogy, and Touching the Skin of Eeriness (2013). Hamaguchi gained international recognition with Happy Hour (2015), which received Special Mention for the screenplay at the Locarno International Film Festival. He then followed with Asako I & II (2018), which was selected to compete for the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival. In 2021, he released two films, Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy and Drive My Car. At Cannes, Drive My Car received the award for Best Screenplay. At the Academy Awards, the film won Best International Feature Film. In addition, Hamaguchi was nominated for Best Director, and the film was the first Japanese production to be nominated for Best Picture. Hamaguchi released Evil Does Not Exist in 2023, which also received widespread critical acclaim winning the Grand Jury Prize at Venice. He followed that same year with Gift, accompanied by a live score by composer Eiko Ishibashi. Hamaguchi’s most recent film, All of a Sudden, premiered at Cannes earlier this year.

Andréa Picard is a film curator and writer specializing in the intersections of film and contemporary art. She has worked at TIFF since 1999 in a multitude of roles and is presently Senior Curator of Film for the Festival and Cinematheque, overseeing the Wavelengths section and curating retrospectives. She was the Artistic Director of the 40th edition of Cinéma du Réel at the Centre Pompidou, where she edited the monograph What Is Real? with contributions by some of today’s most important filmmakers. Her writing has regularly appeared in Cinema Scope magazine and in publications including Artforum, Sight & Sound, Mousse, MUBI, and Phaidon. Picard has curated exhibitions internationally, and is an advisor to the Marrakech International Film Festival. In 2024, she received the Chevalier of the Arts and Letters from the French Ministry of Culture.