As the Hollywood Foreign Press Association joined the world in celebrating the recent 75th annual Cannes Film Festival, there was one movie that stood out for many. So much so, that HFPA Japanese member Itsuko Harai excitedly suggested we talk to Plan 75 writer, director, and cinematographer, Chie Hayakawa about her feature film debut and she became the only filmmaker who took part in an episode of the Golden Globes Around the World podcast during the festival. HFPA Filipino member Yong Chavez recorded the chat on zoom while Hayakawa was still in Cannes, and right before the jury announced her film would receive the Camera D’or Special Mention prize.

Plan 75 takes place in a dystopian version of Japan where, faced with a rapidly aging population that’s ‘draining financial resources’, the government decides to offer everyone over the age of 75 the option (not required, but strongly suggested) to be euthanized, free of charge.

Hayakawa tells Chavez the story was inspired by the tragic Sagamihara stabbings in Japan in 2016. “I’m not really particularly focused on the aging problem in Japan but rather want to start thinking about the authoritarian atmosphere in Japanese society towards the socially weak people, including the elderly, the disabled, and the poor,” she adds. “In 2016, there was an incident in Japan in a disabled nursing care home where the guy broke in and stabbed to death 19 disabled people and said he did it for the sake of good because the disabled are not useful in society anymore. That’s when the Plan 75 concept came to me, and I decided to make this film.”