Skip to main content
Evil Does Not Exist film image

Evil Does Not Exist

Aku Wa Sonzai Shinai

This event has passed

After the extraordinary international success of the Oscar-winning Drive My Car, writer-director Ryûsuke Hamaguchi turned away from the noise and quietly made this small-scale independent film, a work of simplicity and grace about a rural community and the developers who want to built a “glamping” retreat in the woods. The protagonist, Takumi, is a taciturn woodsman whose natural authority the developers seek to co-opt… but things don’t quite work out that way.

Hamaguchi invests this all-too familiar ecological scenario not with drama, but with a rapt attention to Takumi’s way of life: how he chops wood, forages for mushrooms, or takes the measure of an icy stream. That’s not to suggest that nothing happens — there is conflict; change; tragedy — but rather than declare its intentions the film seeks to embody the patient virtues of living in harmony with nature, invites us to absorb them, and reflect.

Meditative and moving.

Jessica Kiang, Variety

Director

Ryûsuke Hamaguchi

Cast

Hitoshi Omika, Ryo Nishikawa, Ryuji Kosaka, Ayaka Shibutani, Hazuki Kikuchi

Credits
Country of Origin

Japan

Year

2023

Language

In Japanese with English subtitles

Awards

Grand Jury Prize, Venice 2023

19+
106 min

Book Tickets

This event has passed.

Credits

Producer

Satoshi Takata

Screenwriter

Ryusuke Hamaguchi

Cinematography

Yoshio Kitagawa

Editor

Ryusuke Hamaguchi, Azusa Yamazaki

Production Design

Masato Nunobe

Original Music

Eiko Ishibashi

Also Playing

Familiar Touch

Dir. Sarah Friedland
90 min

A loving portrait of an octogenarian transitioning into an assisted living facility, this award-winning first feature by choreographer Sarah Friedland has a simplicity and warmth that's exceptionally poignant.

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

Fairy Creek

Dir. Jen Muranetz
86 min

Considered the largest act of civil disobedience in Canadian history, the Fairy Creek blockade led to more than 1200 arrests. What Jen Muranetz's film gives us is the story from the front line from the activists' point of view (often, from the treetops).

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

East of Eden

Dir. Elia Kazan
115 min

Salinas, 1917. Cal Trask's forlorn attempts to win the affection of his self-righteous father (Raymond Massey) represented James Dean's first leading role in the cinema, and his emotionally raw performance ennobled misunderstood youth everywhere.

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre
Georgia O'Keeffe: the Brightness of Light
Georgia O’Keeffe: The Brightness of Light film image; painted reds, pinks, oranges, and yellows that combine to look like a flower

Georgia O'Keeffe: the Brightness of Light

Dir. Paul Wagner
118 min

Drawing on her copious correspondence and the world's leading scholars, this is a definitive documentary on the life and work of "the mother of American Modernism."

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema