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Black Box Diaries

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7.6/10 • 57

2024-10-241h 43m

Documentary

A night that changed her life became a scandal that rocked a nation.

Journalist Shiori Ito embarks on a courageous investigation of her own sexual assault in an improbable attempt to prosecute her high-profile offender. Her quest becomes a landmark case in Japan, exposing the country’s outdated judicial and societal systems.

Directors
Shiori Ito
Writters
Shiori Ito
Editors
Ema Ryan Yamazaki

Top Billed Cast

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  1. Shiori Ito

    Shiori Ito

    Self

  2. Noriyuki Yamaguchi

    Noriyuki Yamaguchi

    Self (archive footage)

  3. Shinzo Abe

    Shinzo Abe

    Self (archive footage)

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CinemaSerf Avatar

CinemaSerf

Jan 29, 2025

7/10

This is quite an harrowing watch at times whilst we follow Japanese journalist Shiori Itô as she seeks justice for an alleged rape a few years earlier. To be fair, up front, this is not a balanced documentary but a potent video-diary style presentation crafted by the woman herself to not only document the course of her own battle, but also to illustrate just how out-dated the legal processes were in a nation that's legal system still treated women as a possession of a man in many ways. We identify the accused - from whom we do not hear directly or via his representatives, and from there on we focus on her attempts to see him face her accusations. The film now concentrates on the courageous efforts of a woman to see that process of justice done. The laws that inherently obstruct her need to be identified, addressed and replaced so as not to protect, or be seen to protect, any influential people from heinous crimes of any sort. It also goes on to demonstrate quite effectively just how difficult - if you are to adopt the "innocent til proven guilty" approach that underpins so much of the legal system - it is to adequately codify crimes of an intimate nature ensuring that they are to be objectively dealt with. Especially problematic as there are so often no witnesses and/or extensive time lapses between the incident and any attempt at redress. It's also quite potent at illuminating what I feel are the frequently absurd differentiations between the evidence required for a criminal or a civil case. The latter always feels to me that it's more about balance of probability, sometimes even money rather than seeing the rule of law robustly and impartially upheld in the first place. This doesn't provide answers to these complex issues, indeed I suspect there are no straightforward answers - but that anyone has to go through this kind of emotional maelstrom just to get a day in court is something that the public ought to feel disgusted by.

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Status
Released
Original Language
English
Budget
--
Revenue
--
Keywords
japansexual violencejusticehuman rightsfemale journalistwoman directorsexual assaultfight for justicegender equalitysystemic corruptioncorrupt legal systemaccountabilityme too movementdisgusted