Tokay, Konstantin Rosshoff | Double or Nothing

“Greed is a disease, how sick are you willing to get?” is the haunting claim made by director Tokay in his latest stop-motion short film Double or Nothing. The story of a corrupted businessman in the mysterious underground of 1980’s Japan has already gathered an array of positive reception, notably through winning the Fantoche – Audience Award & New Talent Special Mention as well as the Zurich Film Prize 2025 for Best Production Design. We speak with director Tokay and production designer Konstantin Rosshoff, to learn more about what inspired them to create this neon coloured tale of corruption and revenge.

Interview

Eugénie Bouquet: Tokay, please tell us more about the idea for this film came about.

Tokay: While searching for a suitable story for my master's thesis film, I found it difficult to decide on the “best” story. My head was bursting with ideas, and when I compared them, I suddenly realized that they all had one thing in common: greed! Interestingly, I had subconsciously devoted all my ideas to different facets of greed, such as possession, gambling, overconsumption, etc., and wanted to gain a deeper understanding of what fascinated me so much about this overarching theme. By chance, while doing background research on the topic of greed, I came across a newspaper article with the headline “The Whale who Nearly Drowned Donald Trump” and was immediately captivated by the story. It tells the story of the super-mysterious gambler, investor, and real estate mogul Akio Kashiwagi, who was a big fish in Tokyo during Japan's boom years in the 1980s and also had shady connections to the yakuza, the Japanese mafia. As a high roller, he was often at the gaming table and regularly won huge sums of money abroad, so Trump personally invited him to Trump Plaza in Las Vegas to compete against him at the gaming table. He did so and took over nine million pounds from Trump, almost ruining Trump's casino. Trump therefore demanded a “Double or Nothing”, and the greedy Akio didn't need to be asked twice. He traveled to Las Vegas again and sat down at the gaming table opposite Trump. Suddenly, however, at a moment in the game when Trump was doing very well, he declared the game over, much to Akio's displeasure. Without ever paying back the money he “won,” Akio continued his business in Tokyo. […] In 1992, Kashiwagi was found dead in his luxurious palace, brutally murdered with over 150 stab wounds, and to this day it remains unclear who actually killed him. 

When I compared Akio's opaque biography with the Nikkei Index, I came to the conclusion that it doesn't really matter who Akio's murderer is. Kashiwagi's greedy nature angered certain people to such an extent that he essentially killed himself. Among other things, the film picks up on precisely this statement and, with its cyclical, repetitive dramaturgy, is a social critique that points out that we too live in a repetitive cycle of greed. The story from the 1980s could not be more topical and shows this scenario where property and wealth pass from one businessman to another. The spinning poker table in the film embodies exactly that: “There will always be a winner on one side of the table and a loser on the other, right?” 

Eugénie Bouquet: And could you tell us more about why the theme of greed is so interesting to you?

Tokay: In my opinion, greed is a kind of disease that afflicts our society. Lines like “Greed is a disease, how sick are you willing to get?” illustrate this in the film. I quickly realized that I didn't want to make the film purely a social critique, but also a true crime thriller that would keep viewers glued to the screen. That's how the term “entertainment with substance” came about, and almost at the same time, I realized that I didn't want Trump in my film. So I invented a fictional character who is searching for Akio and the stolen money and used the American narrative style as a stylistic element to replace Trump and give the story another layer. The way the film ends now, you could understand not only that Kashiwagi killed himself with his own greed, but also that Trump could be behind Akio's unsolved murder...

I didn't see my job as an artist as giving a clear answer as to who actually murdered him, but rather my intention is to hold up a mirror to the world and reflect on certain injustices. This has resulted in the film's closing statement, which is always relevant and timeless: “We live in a wonderfully greedy world!”

Eugénie Bouquet: As mentioned above, we also got the opportunity to interview the film’s production designer Konstantin Rosshoff, a role that is crucial in the development of a film’s visual identity. Konstantin, could you please tell us more about your role as a production designer on the film, especially as it relates to the medium of stop-motion?

Konstantin Rosshoff: As the production designer on Double or Nothing, my role was to build the visual world of the film from the ground up – and in stop-motion that literally means designing objects that must physically exist, perform, and survive animation. I was fortunate to also be responsible for the storyboard and animatic, which were developed in parallel with the script. It became a kind of ping-pong process between Tokay writing and me drawing, shaping the rhythm, framing, and composition of the film very early on.

During this stage, I began researching and designing the world extensively. From previous productions I knew time would become tight, so I pushed the animatic to be as clean and close to the intended designs as possible. Even if certain concepts couldn’t be fully realized later, the animatic functioned as a strong visual blueprint for the entire team.

Once the animatic was locked, I designed the characters and sculpted them in Blender. I created animatable heads with replacement parts – eyelids with multiple stages, lips, and eyebrows – which were resin 3D-printed, sanded, and hand-painted. Arms and shoes were sculpted digitally as well, then cast using 3D-printed molds and silicone. The remaining body elements were carefully handcrafted, and the costumes were sewn by Marco Jörger. Because the characters already existed as digital sculpts, I could quickly generate concept art for key scenes by posing them and painting over the renders in Photoshop.

I worked closely with animators Elie Chapuis and Marco Jörger to ensure the puppets were both expressive and functional. For the sets and props – a major part of the worldbuilding – I designed modular environments, props, and surfaces to allow flexible staging. Everything was built and painted by hand. While 3D printing supported certain elements, each piece received a handmade finish to preserve the tactile quality of the film. Visually, I wanted the film to evoke a detective noir atmosphere, translated into the material, handcrafted language of stop-motion.

At the same time, embracing handcrafted imperfections was essential. Stop-motion thrives on material presence. Production design in this medium becomes a dialogue between sculpture, painting, engineering, cinematography, and narrative tone. You’re not just designing how something looks – you’re designing how it lives, frame by frame.

Eugénie Bouquet: Double or Nothing has a very defined aesthetic, heavily influenced by this fantasized version of Japan you recreated. Could you please tell us more about how you went about that process?

Konstantin Rosshoff: The aesthetic was intentionally built around a stylized, imagined version of Japan rather than a literal representation. I approached it as visual storytelling — distilling recognizable motifs, architectural rhythms, colour palettes, and graphic sensibilities into something evocative rather than documentary. The goal wasn’t realism, but atmosphere and emotional resonance.

Conceptually, the viewer is drawn deeper and deeper beneath the polished surface of an 1980s Tokyo driven by greed. The colour palette follows this descent like a dive into the ocean – gradually darkening until we reach a symbolic “ocean floor”, where a surreal samurai sword fight unfolds between two Akio Kashiwagis and a shark. This metaphor guided many aesthetic decisions, shaping how environments, lighting, and mood evolve throughout the film.

From early on, we wanted the story to be carried by strong visual symbols. The shark represents the predatory nature of real estate power. The detective’s mind map on the floor becomes a living visualization of his thought process. The gambling table, with coins arranged like buildings, symbolizes a city being wagered by money-driven developers. These symbolic layers allow the environment itself to actively participate in the storytelling.

Another important goal was capturing the feeling of 1980s Tokyo without constructing an entire city. A key strategy was the use of an in-world television showing 2D animations by Jack Zhang, which expanded the handcrafted stop-motion environment beyond the physical set. This hybrid approach increased the perceived scale of the world while preserving the tactile intimacy of the medium.

Research informed every step – traditional materials, signage, spatial composition, and pop-cultural imagery helped establish a design vocabulary. These influences were then filtered through the practical logic of stop-motion: simplifying forms, exaggerating silhouettes, and emphasizing readability for the camera. In close collaboration with cinematographer Marco Jörger, whose use of light, lenses, and camera movement elevated the visual storytelling, the production design found its full expression. The handcrafted process allowed cultural references to merge with theatrical stylization, resulting in a world that feels familiar, dreamlike, and grounded in material texture rather than strict realism.

I’m extremely happy with the final visual result and proud of what the team achieved together. Amongst the film’s broader festival recognition, the production design itself received two awards – the Best Production Design Award at the Sapporo Short Film Festival 2025 in Japan and the Zurich Film Prize 2025 for Best Production Design. Because the film is set in Japan, receiving this recognition in Sapporo felt like a particularly meaningful honour. For me, these awards shine a light on a craft that often remains invisible to audiences, even though it deeply shapes how a story is experienced. A huge thank you goes to my art department – their dedication, skill, and collaboration were essential in bringing this vision to life.