Film Forum will present the US theatrical premiere of Shiori Itō’s BLACK BOX DIARIES, opening on Friday, October 25. We watched the documentary back in January at Sundance; check out our review of the film here.

In 2017, Japanese journalist Shiori Itō publicly accused a prominent media executive (and associate of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe) of rape and published a bestselling memoir detailing her case — Black Box, a book that galvanized the women’s movement in Japan and won the Free Press Association of Japan Award for Best Journalism in 2018. BLACK BOX DIARIES is Itō’s riveting, real-time investigation of her own sexual assault — and includes raw video diaries (shot on Itō’s iPhone), surreptitious audio recordings of police negligence, and vérité courtroom footage. Piecing together the crime she experienced, while facing a great emotional toll, Itō’s courageous quest sparked a historic reckoning in Japan, addressing its patriarchal judiciary and antiquated sex crimes laws (proven lack of consent was insufficient).

BLACK BOX DIARIES had its world premiere at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival and went on to screen at SXSW, MoMA Doc Fortnight, CPH:DOX, where it won the Human Rights Award, and more festivals internationally.

Shiori Itō is a journalist, writer, and documentary filmmaker. Her primary focus is gender-based human rights issues. She co-founded Hanashi Films, a Tokyo and London-based production company that has collaborated with NHK, BBC, and Al Jazeera, amongst others. In 2020 she was listed as one of the 100 most influential people in the world by TIME magazine.