Black Box Diaries

NOTE: Unfortunately, director Shiori Itō will no longer be able to attend this screening.

Dir. Shiori Itō. 2024, 99 mins. Japan. DCP. In Japanese and English with English subtitles. In 2017, journalist Shiori Itō publicly accused a prominent media executive (and associate of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe) of rape, then weathered an often cruel and intolerant backlash. The book she published to detail her experience, Black Box, has been credited with sparking Japan’s #MeToo movement. Throughout, Itō had also been recording raw video diaries (shot on iPhone), which serve as the spine of this first-person documentary that is also an extraordinary real-time investigation of her own sexual assault, thanks to her surreptitious audio recordings of police detectives and other officials. Itō documents her struggle to navigate Japan’s patriarchal judiciary and antiquated sex crimes laws with such focus and rigor that the effects of her own trauma manifest belatedly. Black Box Diaries is a brave and generous act of both journalistic commitment and sacrificial self-exposure. 

Tickets: $17.50 / $12 senior and students / $10 youth (ages 3–17) / discounted for MoMI members ($7–$11). There is a $1.50 transaction fee per ticket for all online purchases. The cost of admission may be applied toward a same-day purchase of a membership. 

Order tickets. Please pick up tickets at the Museum’s admissions desk upon arrival. All seating is general admission.