“Kefi,” a debut feature by cinematographer and director Saito Kisin, premiered at the Tokyo International Film Festival in the Nippon Cinema Now section. The film combines multiple short narratives and stylistic approaches to examine grief and loss, specifically exploring the filmmaker’s relationship with his late father.
The project originated as a planned series of four short films, each addressing different thematic concerns: ethics, hypocrisy, discrimination, and life and death. Saito initially conceived the work as loosely connected to his own family structure but modified the concept to follow three sisters rather than three brothers. In 2024, while developing the project, Saito learned of his father’s passing. This event directly informed the film’s narrative, with the opening scenes depicting three sisters receiving news of their father’s death following a scene in which their absent father provides narration. Like Saito’s own father, the characters’ father had been separated from the family following their parents’ divorce approximately a decade prior.
Saito approached the subject of grief by focusing on emotional complexity, including the experience of numbness rather than traditional sadness. He described his own response to his father’s death as lacking sadness, attributing this partly to their decade-long estrangement and partly to his father’s humorous personality. The film aims to depict this perspective through the experiences of its three main characters, acknowledging that not all individuals experience conventional grief when losing loved ones.
The film employs visual and stylistic variety to reflect the sisters’ separate lives and experiences. Saito utilizes switches between color and monochrome photography and alternates between handheld and stabilized camera work. These technical choices emerged from his desire to experiment with different approaches rather than from predetermined thematic assignments. Saito handled multiple roles on the production—director, writer, cinematographer, gaffer, and editor—drawing from his experience working on YouTube content and larger productions. He attributed this hands-on approach to his desire to collaborate with trusted collaborators and maintain a unified creative vision.
Saito expressed interest in presenting contemporary Japanese filmmaking that extends beyond internationally recognized styles and filmmakers. He noted that global audiences often associate Japanese cinema with anime or mainstream commercial films, and he sought to demonstrate the diversity and innovation present in modern Japanese filmmaking.
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