“Black Box Diaries,” a documentary in which Japanese journalist Shiori Ito investigates her own sexual assault case and the barriers she faced in pursuing justice, has been screened widely abroad since its 2024 festival debut and earned an Oscar nomination early this year.
It finally premiered in Japan on Friday, a long-delayed domestic release that began with a single-theater run.
In Japan, sexual assault victims are often stigmatized and silenced. But the barrier to the film’s release at home was largely the result of a legal dispute over her use of some interviews and footage of witnesses and involved parties without their consent.
The 102-minute film was screened to a full house on Friday at the T. Joy Prince Shinagawa, a large cinema complex in downtown Tokyo.
Ito expressed relief that she could finally share her story with an audience in her home country.
“Until last night, I was afraid if the film is going to come out or not,” she told The Associated Press after the screening. “The reason I made this film is because I want to talk about this issue openly in Japan. It’s been like my little love letter to Japan, so I’m just so happy that this day came finally.”
Ito, who went public with what she says happened to her in 2015, has become the face of Japan’s slow moving #MeToo movement. She is the first Japanese director to be nominated for an Oscar in the category of documentary feature film. The film is based on a 2017 book she wrote, “Black Box.”
What happened in 2015
As an intern in 2015, Ito was seeking a position at private TBS Television and met one of its senior journalists, Noriyuki Yamaguchi, who became her alleged assailant. She has said in her book and film that she became dizzy during a dinner they had together and passed out in a restroom. She said Yamaguchi took her to his hotel room and raped her while she was incapacitated, and continued the assault even when she woke up in pain and told him to stop.
Ito filed a criminal complaint with police, but it took weeks to persuade them to start investigating. Prosecutors eventually dropped the case, without telling her why. In the film, a police investigator tells her a planned arrest was halted by higher-ups.
A taxi driver who dropped Ito and Yamaguchi at the hotel recounts in the film that Ito repeatedly asked to be dropped off at a nearby train station. A hotel security camera footage showed a man recognizable as Yamaguchi pulling Ito out of a taxi and dragging her into the hotel as she struggled to walk — key evidence to get a police investigation started, Ito said.
The film is an emotional chronicle of her battle against the authorities and the larger society. Not only was the alleged assailant’s expected arrest suddenly dropped, but documents she requested were blacked out, she said.
“It really was a black box,” she said.
That led to suspicions by Ito and her supporters that powerful people exerted influence. In 2017, Ito filed a complaint against prosecutors, then filed a suit against Yamaguchi seeking 11 million yen ($70,530) in damages.
In 2022 the Supreme Court ruled that Ito was forced to have non-consensual sex and ordered Yamaguchi to pay her 3.3 million yen ($21,290). Yamaguchi denied the allegation, saying the sex was consensual. He filed a counter suit demanding Ito pay him 13 million yen ($83,350) for allegedly damaging his reputation, but that case was dismissed.
Victims silenced in Japan
Ito said she wrote the book to shed light on the taboo surrounding sexual assault, and that her journalistic pursuit of evidence helped her keep some distance from her own trauma. She then made the film to tell a more personal story. It was challenging but the process helped her heal, she said.
“I’m sure (the audience) will realize it’s our story, it’s our everyday life story,” she said. “Through this film, I really wish for other people to start slowly opening black boxes around them.”
Ito and distributor Toei Agency say they hope a positive audience reception would help the film to be shown at more theaters.
Koyuki Azuma, an audience member who said she survived sexual abuse by her father, said she was concerned it might cause her discomfort, but instead felt encouraged by Ito’s struggle and pursuit of truth.
“I was cheering her as I watched it,” Azuma said. “I think it will have a positive impact on Japan’s society.”
Public rights vs. privacy
Reforms in favor of sexual assault victims have come slowly in Japan, where the legislative and judicial branches have long been dominated by men. In 2023 there was finally a revision to Japan’s more than a century-old law on sexual offenses. It provides greater protection for victims of sexual crimes and stricter punishment of assailants.
In 2024 Ito faced a legal dispute with the lawyers who defended her in her sexual assault case. They alleged that she undermined the privacy of key sources.
Yoko Nishihiro, one of Ito’s former lawyers who turned against her over the film, said Thursday she worries that the way Ito handled the privacy of sources in her film will hurt the chances of future sexual assault cases by making it harder to obtain cooperation from potential witnesses.
Heidi Ka-Sin Lee, a film critic and researcher at Sophia University in Tokyo, notes that the lawyers who pointed blame at Ito “simply did not mention what the documentary is about or what this documentary would be capable of doing in Japanese culture, Japanese society.”
“I think it all comes down to how to determine public good,” she said.
Ito in February acknowledged she used some of the content without getting consent and apologized, promising to edit the film to ensure those people are not identified in future screenings. She has since altered voices of hotel staff, a police investigator and others shown in the film.
In a statement in October, she also apologized to the taxi driver and his family, acknowledging she used footage of him without his consent.
But Ito also said she kept some unauthorized materials, saying they are essential to describing what happened to her.
