Black Box Diaries, a documentary film produced and directed by Japanese journalist Shiori Ito, has been nominated for an Academy Award. It will compete in the best documentary feature film category alongside No Other Land by a Palestinian-Israeli collective that focuses on the ongoing destruction of the occupied West Bank’s Masafer Yatta community, and Porcelain War, which follows Kharkiv artists as they attempt to survive the Russian invasion. The other two nominees are Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat, which deals with the aftermath of the assassination of Congolese leader, Patrice Lumumba, and Sugarcane, an investigation into missing children at an Indian residential school。
About Black Box Diaries
Premiering at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival, Black Box Diaries documents Ito’s high-profile rape case from 2015. It’s based on a 2017 memoir written by Ito titled Black Box, which was awarded the best journalism award by the Free Press Association of Japan in 2018. Her case became a landmark for the MeToo movement here. A Tokyo court in December 2019 awarded Itō ¥3.3 million plus additional fees in damages from the alleged rapist, Noriyuki Yamaguchi. According to Ito, she met the influential TBS journalist at a sushi restaurant to speak about a job opportunity. She claims he dragged her to his room and raped her.
The investigator collected CCTV footage of her being carried into the hotel, DNA from her underwear and testimonies from the taxi driver and bellman. In June 2015, an arrest warrant was issued for Yamaguchi, who was due to fly into Japan from the States. After he arrived at Narita Airport, the police were ready to take him into custody. At the last minute, though, the decision was dramatically overturned by Itaru Nakamura. He was the head of the criminal investigation division at the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department. Ito was never given an explanation as to why the decision was made.
Speaking Out
“As a nation we tend to keep things in due to our upbringing,” Ito told Tokyo Weekender in 2018. “Don’t get me wrong, sexual abuse is an uncomfortable topic for anyone, anywhere in the world, to address publicly. Even an outspoken star like Lady Gaga kept the fact that she was raped secret for seven years. But in Japan, I believe there’s an even greater reluctance to speak out because of the stigma attached to sex. We never discuss what’s right or wrong… After being raped, I was unsure what to do as I’d never been told anything.”
She added, “It’s easy to understand why so few people report these crimes. According to a 2014 survey by the Cabinet, just 4.3% of women who were victims of a sexual crime consulted the police. That number isn’t going to significantly increase simply by making modifications to the justice system. We need to go deeper than that and look at society as a whole. From the way we’re educated to the way we treat and respond to rape survivors. More than anything, we must draw inspiration from what’s happening in Hollywood and around the world with the MeToo movement, and start talking openly about sexual violence.”
Black Box Diaries has been shown in 50 different festivals in more than 30 countries, but still not in Japan.
