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The Independent
03-03-2025
- Entertainment
- The Independent
Black Box Diaries: Oscar-nominated Japanese documentary that may never air in its own country
Shiori Ito 's Black Box Diaries may have lost to No Other Land at the Oscars, but both the filmmaker and her film have long been making waves in Japan. Black Box Diaries, nominated for best documentary feature at the 97th Academy Awards, follows Ito's investigation into the sexual violence she suffered herself. The story begins in 2015 when she meets the Washington DC bureau chief of the Tokyo Broadcasting System, Noriyuki Yamaguchi, to discuss a potential job. She is 25 at the time and an intern at Thomson Reuters. In the film, Ito remembers meeting Yamaguchi for dinner, losing consciousness during the meal and waking up to Yamaguchi allegedly raping her in his hotel. Ito says she reported the alleged crime, but police sought to discourage her from filing a report, even making her go through a harrowing recreation of the assault. 'I had to lay down on the floor, there were three or four male investigators with cameras, and they placed this lifelike doll on me and moved it and took photos,' she says. An arrest warrant was issued in Ito's case but Yamaguchi, who was allegedly close to then prime minister Shinzo Abe and had written a biography of him, was never arrested and the criminal case was quickly dropped with no explanation. Ito went public with her allegation in May 2017, but faced backlash in a country where talking about sexual violence is still a taboo. Ito received the kind of criticism that nearly all sexual assault survivors face, including questions about what she was wearing. She was accused of wearing an outfit that was too revealing because she had left a button undone on a blue, collared blouse that she wore to the meeting instead of the traditional black suit one usually wore to interviews. In 2019, Ito won a civil trial in Tokyo where judges ruled that Yamaguchi 'had sexual intercourse without consent with Ms Ito, who was in a state of intoxication and unconscious'. Ito won damages worth ¥3.3m (£17,387) and immediately became the face of the #MeToo movement in Japan. Yamaguchi, then 53, denied the accusations and filed a countersuit, claiming the incident was consensual and that Ito's accusations had ruined his reputation. His suit, seeking ¥130m (£685,360) in damages, was dismissed. 'Honestly, I still don't know how I feel. However, winning this case doesn't mean this didn't happen,' Ito told reporters outside the court in 2019. 'This is not the end.' Ito wrote a memoir about her experience, Black Box, which formed the basis for her directorial debut. 'It took me four years because emotionally I was struggling,' she told the BBC about making the film. Black Box Diaries premiered at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival and went on to be screened at over 50 film festivals, winning multiple awards along the way and garnering a best documentary nomination at the Oscars, a first in that category by a Japanese director. In her native country, where a 2017 government survey reported nearly one in 13 (7.8 per cent) women saying they had been raped, Ito's film might never find an audience. 'We have been struggling to bring the film to Japan, and we hoped the nomination can get us through,' Ito told Deadline earlier in February. Ito has drawn condemnation from her former lawyers for using what they call unauthorised footage. Ito, however, claims that using it was essential to tell the story of how her case was covered up, even while apologising to those whose 'consent for the use of footage was overlooked'. Her lawyers have said using security footage from the hotel where the incident took place as well as images and audio recordings from a taxi driver and investigators in the case were all meant to be used in court alone and violated the privacy of the people concerned. Ito responded that she would re-edit the film to ensure 'appropriate processing to prevent individuals from being identified' in the aforementioned footage and audio. The presence of this footage has become a sticking point in getting her film released in the country, though conservative attitudes towards sex and sexual violence have a role to play. The contentious hotel footage from the night in question, which Ito has said was incredibly hard for her to obtain, allegedly shows Yamaguchi pulling out an inebriated and visibly struggling Ito from a taxi and helping her into the hotel. 'People in general and theatres in this case are more risk averse in Japan than, for example, the States. And they feel more vulnerable to legal claims and trouble,' Black Box Diaries producer Eric Nyari says. Ito simply maintains: 'Distributors, they know it's no legal issue, so they're more scared about the public voice.' Black Box Diaries may never be screened in Japan, but Ito's case has already led to changes within the country. In 2023, Japan passed landmark laws that raised the age of sexual consent from 13 to 16 and redefined the definition of rape from 'forcible sexual intercourse' to 'nonconsensual sexual intercourse' and extended protection to victims under the influence of alcohol or drugs or those coerced by an individual in a position of authority. Ito describes the film as her 'love letter to Japan' and hopes that it has some impact. 'I want to encourage other survivors to tell their story in their own language, because it's very empowering,' she told the Global Investigative Journalism Network. 'Own your story and be the one to tell your own story.'
Yahoo
28-02-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Japan's MeToo icon is up for an Oscar - but the film can't air in the country
When Japanese journalist Shiori Ito decided to speak up about her rape allegations, she knew she was standing in the face of a society that preferred silence. "I'm scared…but all I want to do is to talk about the truth", Shiori says in the opening scene of her Oscar-nominated documentary Black Box Diaries. Shiori became the face of Japan's MeToo movement after she accused a prominent journalist Noriyuki Yamaguchi of rape. Her acclaimed directorial debut, based on her memoir of the same name, is a retelling of her quest for justice after authorities found the evidence insufficient to pursue criminal charges. But there is one country where it is yet to play: Japan, where it has run into huge controversy. Her former lawyers have accused her of including audio and video footage she did not have permission to use, which, they say, has violated trust and put her sources at risk. Shiori defends what she did as necessary for "public good". It's a startling turn in a story that gripped Japan when it first broke -the then 28-year-old Shiori ignored her family's request to remain silent. And after her public accusation did not result in a criminal case, she filed a civil lawsuit against Yamaguchi and won $30,000 (£22,917) in damages. Shiori told the BBC making the film involved "reliving her trauma": "It took me four years [to make the film] because emotionally I was struggling." She was an intern at Reuters news agency in 2015, when she says Yamaguchi invited her to discuss a job opportunity. He was the Washington bureau chief for a major Japanese media firm, Tokyo Broadcasting System. Shiori claims she was raped following a dinner in Tokyo with Yamaguchi, who has always denied the allegations. CCTV footage of an intoxicated Shiori being dragged from a taxi and into a hotel is part of the more than 400 hours of footage she edited for the documentary. The editing process, she says, was "really challenging. It was like hardcore exposure therapy." When the film was released, the CCTV footage became a source of friction as Shiori's team of ex-lawyers, who helped her win her lawsuit, slammed the documentary. They claimed it was unauthorised use of CCTV footage - and that she had violated a pledge not to use it outside of court proceedings. . Last week, her former lawyers – led by Yoko Nishihiro - held another press conference, saying her use of the footage posed challenges for other sexual assault cases. "If the fact that the evidence from the trial has been made public is known, we will be unable to obtain cooperation in future cases," Ms Nishihiro said. Ms Nishihiro claimed that Shiori had also used unauthorised recordings, saying she only found this out at a screening of the film last July. This included audio of a police detective who eventually acted as a whistleblower about the investigation process – as well as a video of a taxi driver who provided testimony about the night of the alleged rape. Both of them, the lawyers argued, were identifiable and neither had given their consent to be featured in the film. "I've been trying so hard to protect her for eight-and-half years, and I feel like I've been completely torn apart," Ms Nishihiro said. "I want her to explain and be held accountable." Shiori had earlier acknowledged that she did not have the hotel's permission to use the CCTV but argued that this was "the only visual evidence" she had of the night she was sexually assaulted. She added that including audio of the police detective was necessary because of "the cover up of the investigation", adding that she was releasing the video "for the public good". "We are standing in different points of view," she said of the fallout with her former lawyers. "For me, [it's for the] public good. For them, it's 'do not break any rules'." There has been no official explanation as to why the film has not yet been distributed. Shiori has said that "Japan is still not ready to talk about [it]", but its unclear how much of it is also due to legal hurdles. In her latest statement last week, Shiori apologised and said she would re-edit parts of the documentary to make sure individuals would not be identified, adding that a redacted version would be screened moving forward. "There are moments I wish I didn't have to put in [the documentary]. There are moments I'm not proud of but I wanted to put all of it and to show we are also human," she told the BBC. "No-one is perfect." Is the downfall of a Japanese star a turning point for women's rights? The women fighting Japan's sexual violence stigma Why is Japan redefining rape? In the nine years since the assault, Shiori's fight against Japan's justice system has been well-chronicled in the media - and is something she says she wanted to detail in her documentary. She was met with a wave of backlash when she went public in 2017, receiving hate mail and online abuse. "People were telling me you're not crying enough… you're not wearing proper clothes... you're too strong." Some criticised the way she was dressed at the press conference where she first accused Yamaguchi – they said her shirt had been buttoned too low down. Shiori said she left Japan for a few months, fearing for her safety. Shiori's case was followed by other high-profile cases. In 2023, former soldier Rina Gonoi also went public with her story, accusing three ex-soldiers of sexually assaulting her. This was also the year Japan passed landmark laws redefining rape to include "non-consensual sexual intercourse" and raised the age of consent from 13 to 16. Gonoi eventually won her case but Shiori says it is proof that speaking up against sexual violence comes at a price, adding: "Is it worth going through this as a survivor seeking justice? It shouldn't be this way. You have to sacrifice a lot." For now it's unclear if her film will ever be screened in Japan, but she says that its homecoming would be her ultimate prize. "This is my love letter to Japan. I really wish one day I can screen my film, and my family can also watch it," she added. "That's what I really hope for… more than winning an Oscar."
