+ Q&A with director Shiori Ito
We are delighted to announce that following this event, director Shiori Ito will join us for a book signing located outside of the Blue Room. Copies of Shiori’s book are available for purchase from the BFI Shop and we will operate a queuing system on a first-come first served basis.
Director’s statement
My name is Shiori Ito, and I am a journalist and filmmaker. In May 2017, I went public about being raped by Noriyuki Yamaguchi, a former Washington Bureau Chief for the Tokyo Broadcasting System known to be the closest journalist to then Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.
In Japan, where speaking of rape remains taboo, only 4% of victims report their cases to police. Victims and those around them may be stigmatised and even ostracised from society. My family was against my actions. The police investigator, who had prepared to arrest Yamaguchi at Narita Airport upon returning from the US before receiving a last-minute call ‘from above’, warned that I was ruining a journalism career just beginning. However, I felt a strong desire for the truth to be known, and to change Japanese society in order to prevent what happened to me from happening to more women.
Our film begins weeks before, the day I began recording video diaries on my iPhone, confessing my fear about what was to come. With only a vague idea of its future use, the material for this film began with a need to protect myself. In the previous year, after my case was suppressed by various levers of power in the Japanese system, I had secretly recorded conversations with the police and others. I became not only the victim but the investigator of my own case.
My coming forward shocked the public. There was a vicious backlash from the ultra-right, with an online campaign of disparaging posts and death threats, as well as everyday Japanese who picked apart my appearance and background. Why was my top blouse button undone at the press conference? This was evidence that I was a slut. A true Japanese would not speak of such shame.
Later, when a historic change in the Japanese rape law was passed, I felt my primary goal was accomplished and that I could return to a normal life. It was too late. I had become a hero, a villain, an icon – but I could not live with myself.
I pushed myself to the limit in shooting this documentary. Upon revisiting the hotel where I was raped, I felt the damage I was doing to myself might be too much. But at the same time, my desire to change society and tell this story kept me alive. Now, four years after winning the civil case, I can with more objectivity watch the scenes of my breaking down, passing moments of joy and normalcy, and absurd comedy in my novice investigator techniques – and to conceive how they can come together to form our film.
A black box is defined as a system whose internal workings are hidden or not readily understood. Japan is a land of black boxes, and I learned what happens in this society when you start opening them. Our film is not about seeking criminal justice against my perpetrator or about politics of the left and right. Rather, it is the story of one woman’s experience – my black box, laid open for all to see.
About the production
Shiori Ito began accumulating the materials for Black Box Diaries as a means of protection, recording secret audio of the police and filming herself confessional style on her iPhone at home. As a journalist, she had an instinct that they might become valuable in telling her own story, though she had not defined yet in what medium. Over the years, between the rape in April 2015 and her civil case victory in December 2019, Shiori relied upon her creative partner, Swedish journalist and filmmaker Hanna Aqvilin, and the support of videographer friends to shoot her activities vérité-style while continuing to film herself confessional-style with an iPhone and diligently keep up her diary. She was also filmed by media outlets such as BBC and NHK, with agreements she would later be able to access the footage. It is these materials which, though varying in style and format, together comprise a viscerally raw, shocking, and ultimately human and convincing account of this period of five years in Shiori’s life. In late 2020, one year after the civil court victory, she felt ready to tell her own story in the form of a feature documentary.
In approaching Black Box Diaries, Shiori’s intention first and foremost has been to allow this powerful record of events gathered in real-time to form the spine of the film; it proceeds mostly chronologically and explicitly from the first-person POV of the director/subject. Although those around Shiori were re-interviewed to gain further context and understanding, no images or even audio from these interviews appear in the final film. Rather, information necessary to follow the story both for Japanese and international audiences is woven into the timeline using subtle techniques such as images from Shiori’s diary and from contemporaneous media. Shiori also collaborated with Japanese visual artist Keke Shiratama to create a new layer of abstract imagery representing her inner experience. To enhance the immersive experience of Black Box Diaries, the film has a soundscape at the border of sound and music with an original score by Mark degli Antoni and sound design by Andrew Tracy.
When this film production started, Japan’s rape laws had remained the same for the last 110 years, with a shorter minimum sentence for rape than theft. Rape rarely existed according to statistics, and culturally and structurally, sexual violence was not treated as a serious problem. Rape was provable only by severe physical violence or threats, not by lack of consent. The taboo and the complications involved in addressing the topic existed on all levels of society, and therefore most victims rarely came forward with sexual assault allegations. The fear of having to relive the event and the stigma led to only 4% (some studies even say as low as 1%) of sexual assault survivors reporting the crime. The chances of a female police officer being assigned to the case were very rare – less than 8% of the Japanese police force are women. When going to the police, victims often had to re-enact their incident with life-sized dolls. Tokyo only had one rape crisis centre for a city with a 14 million population – a single phone line with two staff members sharing the work burden. This is the society Shiori Ito faced when she decided to report a rape, and Black Box Diaries is the story of hard-won change, albeit not nearly enough yet.
Production notes
BLACK BOX DIARIES
Director: Shiori Ito
©: Star Sands, Cineric Creative, Hanashi Films
A production by: Hanashi Films, Cineric Creative, Hanashi Films
In association with: Spark Features
Supported by: Hot Docs Forum, IDA – International Documentary Association – Enterprise Documentary Fund, Sundance Institute
Presented by: Dogwoof
Executive Producers: Robina Riccitiello, Josh Peters, Mitsunobu Kawamura
Produced by: Eric Nyari, Hanna Aqvilin, Shiori Ito
Co-producers: Takashi Shinomiya, Ryo Yukizane, Ryo Nagai, Yuta Okamura, Ema Ryan Yamazaki
Creative Consultant: Takeshi Fukunaga
Casting by: Rikiya Takano
Camera by: Hanna Aqvilin, Yuta Okamura, Yuichiro Otsuka, Shiori Ito
Abstract Imagery by: Keke Shiratama
Graphics Consultant: Naoko Saito
Editor: Ema Ryan Yamazaki
Co-editor: Mariko Montpetite
Assistant Editor: Mizuki Toriya
Consulting Editor: Maya Daisy Hawke
Titles and Graphic Design by: Mizuki Toriya, Keke Shiratama
Colourist: Fumiro Sato
Original Score: Mark degli Antoni
Archival Music Supervisor: John McCullough
Sound Design and Mix by: Andrew Tracy
Audio Post Producer: Laura Dopp
Special Advisers: Aiko Masubuchi, Neo Sora
Documentary Counsellor: Keke Shiratama
Publicity: Susan Norget
Japan-USA-Sweden-UK 2024
102 mins
Digital
Courtesy of Dogwoof
Woman with a Movie Camera is generously supported by Jane Stanton
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Programme notes and credits compiled by Sight and Sound and the BFI Documentation Unit
Notes may be edited or abridged
Questions/comments? Contact the Programme Notes team by email