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Hamaguchi, who is currently in Paris preparing for the movie, penned the script with Léa Le Dimna, loosely inspired by a collection of real-life exchanged letters published in the book “You and I – The Illness Suddenly Get Worse,” by Makiko Miyano and Maho Isono.

In the book […] a philosopher and an anthropologist are exchanging letters discussing their thoughts on chance and risk, and their relationship develops into something more personal when the philosopher’s health suddenly deteriorates.

“Death becomes a subject they discuss and exchange a lot about, and gradually, it becomes an encounter between two souls,” says Hamaguchi, who ultimately decided to transpose the story in France, and turn the epistolary relationship into a real one between two women, a Japanese theater director and French director of a nursing home.