On Friday, September 23, 2022, the Humanities Council hosted a Belknap Global Conversation with award-winning director and screenwriter Ryûsuke Hamaguchi, in conversation with Princeton faculty Anne Cheng (English), Steven Chung (East Asian Studies), Thomas Hare (Comparative Literature), and Gavin Steingo (Music). Tera W. Hunter (History, African American Studies), acting chair of the Humanities Council, welcomed the overflowing crowd in Betts Auditorium.
Hamaguchi is among the most thoughtful and original filmmakers working in global cinema today. His most recent film, Drive My Car (2021), won multiple international awards, including Best Screenplay at the 74th Cannes International Film Festival and Best International Feature at the 94th Academy Awards.
The nearly two-hour conversation covered a wide range of topics, including the arc of Hamaguchi’s career, connections between documentary and fiction filmmaking, pacing and music, and portrayals of grief throughout his various films. Tara McGowan ’90 provided translation for the event.
The Belknap Global Conversation was part of a weeklong residency with Hamaguchi, co-sponsored by the Department of East Asian Studies, the East Asian Studies Program, the Department of Comparative Literature, and the Humanities Council’s Committee for Film Studies. During the week, he led a series of workshops with Princeton students, who developed and produced their own short films, and participated in classes and screenings of his more recent films at the Princeton Garden Theatre.
Read more about the events in the Daily Princetonian and in the Princeton Alumni Weekly.
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The Humanities Council’s Belknap Global Conversations bring distinguished writers, artists, and scholars to Princeton University’s campus for conversations that bridge “arts and ideas” in a global context. The program aims to provoke dialogue on a theme of broad interest in the realm of arts and letters that cuts across disciplinary boundaries and world regions. Learn more about the program on the Council’s website.
