Black Box Diaries (Shiori Itō, 2024) + Q&A w/ filmmaker

Thursday, April 9, 2026 7:00pm

Location: Rubenstein Arts Center Film Theater

Black Box Diaries
(Shiori Itō, 2024, 103 min, Japan, Japanese and English with English subtitles, DCP)

-- Q&A to follow w/ the film’s director, Shiori Itō, in discussion w/ Prof. Anne Allison (Cultural Anthropology) & Prof. Kimberly Hassel (Asian & Middle Eastern Studies)

Join APSI, Screen/Society, and the Center for Documentary Studies for this special screening of a powerful documentary based on the international best-selling memoir that sparked Japan's #metoo movement.

Black Box Diaries follows director and journalist Shiori Ito’s courageous investigation of her own sexual assault in an improbable attempt to prosecute her high-profile offender. Unfolding like a thriller and combining secret investigative recordings, vérité shooting and emotional first-person video, Shiori’s quest becomes a landmark case in Japan, exposing the country’s desperately outdated judicial and societal systems.

“A stunning, effective tale of reclaiming victimhood…Itō shows us all that it is possible to survive something that feels insurmountable, and we should be grateful for her towering example." – The Wrap

“REMARKABLE. A tightly wound, heart-on-sleeve procedural documentary, Shiori Itō’s directorial debut identifies a world of systemic iniquities through the prism of a single, long labored-over case of sexual assault—crucially, the director’s own." – Variety

“One of the best documentaries you’ll see all year" – Rolling Stone

About the filmmaker

Shiori Itō is an Oscar and BAFTA-nominated documentary filmmaker, journalist, and writer, and the co-founder of Hanashi Films, focusing on gender-based human rights issues, and was named one of TIME magazine’s 100 Most Influential People in 2020. She has directed numerous documentaries in Sierra Leone, Turkey, Peru, Japan, and many other parts of the world, exploring themes of justice, gender, and resilience through intimate storytelling.

Her first feature documentary, Black Box Diaries, premiered at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival and has since been released globally. The film won a Peabody Award, received Oscar and BAFTA nominations, and earned more than twenty international prizes. Screened in more than sixty countries.

Shiori is also the author of Black Box (2017), a work of non-fiction based on her own experience of sexual violence that exposed systemic sexism in Japan. The book received the Free Press Association of Japan’s Best Journalism Award in 2018 and has been translated into ten languages, including English.

Her latest book, Swim Naked (2023), published in Japan and China, explores themes of resilience, vulnerability, and survival.

Her work has appeared in outlets such as Reuters, BBC, Al Jazeera, and The Economist. She was named One Young World’s Journalist of the Year in 2022. She also serves as an ambassador for NO MORE, a global organization committed to ending domestic and sexual violence.

Alongside her filmmaking and writing, Shiori delivers talks and lectures at universities, high schools, and international forums, sharing her experiences to inform, inspire, and empower the next generation.