In Tokyo, a woman restores dead, revealing stories of connection.
Behind closed doors in Tokyo, some of the dead remain unnamed and unseen for days. At 65, Chiemi has spent more than half her life restoring their identities. In a modest workshop shared with her colleagues Someya-san and Yagawa-san, bodies arrive quietly, handled with care, washed, repaired, and gently reconstructed so families can say goodbye with dignity.
Their work is not only technical but deeply human. With each careful movement, traces of untold lives begin to surface. These bodies bear the marks of modern existence, loneliness, fatigue, and silent struggles, reflecting the hidden fractures of contemporary society.
The film looks beyond death to what lingers afterward. It explores the delicate balance between remembrance and release, asking how we can honor those we’ve lost without being overwhelmed by grief, and how caring for the dead might also teach us to care for the living.
As Chiemi and her colleagues approach retirement, uncertainty looms over the future of this profession. In a world increasingly removed from death, the film raises a pressing question: who will step forward to confront it, to restore dignity to the forgotten, and to give the departed a final, human face?
Fanny Lehmann is a Paris-based French producer with experience in film and podcast production, particularly as a production manager. She worked on *The Wild One* and *Night of the Kings*, which premiered at Venice and represented Ivory Coast at the Oscars. She spent over two years at ARTE Radio producing podcasts. Selected for the Ludwigsburg-Paris Atelier in 2023, she trained internationally and produced a short film. In 2025, she founded Radical Dreamers.
Mukesh Kumaravel is an Indian-born filmmaker and La Fémis graduate working in fiction and documentary. Trained as an engineer, he turned to cinema in 2014 and spent years in Mumbai as an assistant director on features, documentaries, and commercials. He joined La Fémis’s workshop in 2018 and entered directing program in 2020 with support from the Institut Français in India. His films have screened at Doclisboa, Sarlat, and Dolcevita. He is developing his first feature documentary and a fiction film.
