Black Box Diaries

Shiori Ito is a young woman in Japan who wants to be a journalist. She says she was raped by a well known television correspondent and makes a complaint. An arrest warrant is cancelled at the last moment. Ito holds a press conference giving her name, something almost never done in Japan, and years of litigation, public pressure and threats follow. The film is made of footage she shot herself. Shiori Ito directs; she is both the subject and the producer. The form is a diary. Ito kept the camera running for years: phone calls, meetings with lawyers, hotel records and her own audio are the material. The Japanese legal system is at the centre. That the law on sexual offences had not changed, the threshold of evidence and the conduct of the police are shown directly; Ito's case was among those that hastened the argument about the law in Japan. It screened at Sundance in 2024 and was nominated for the best documentary Oscar in 2025. It caused an argument in Japan. Ito's former lawyers stated that some footage and audio had been used without permission, saying in particular that no consent had been obtained for hotel security recordings and certain telephone conversations. Because of that dispute the film could not be shown in Japan for a long time. Who it is for: viewers who follow first person documentary and films that criticise a legal system. Who it is not for: the subject is very heavy, the narrative is exhausting, and the argument about the film's method cannot be set aside while watching.