Lens on the Self: 'Black Box Diaries' and Shiori Ito

Named one of the 100 most influential people in the world by Time Magazine in 2020, Shiori Ito is an acclaimed journalist, writer, documentary filmmaker and co-founder of Hanashi Films.

Her feature debut Black Box Diaries premiered at Sundance 2024, where it was nominated for the World Cinema Prize – Documentary. The film has since won the 2024 CPH:DOX Human Rights Award, been BAFTA nominated for Best Documentary and, most recently Oscar®-nominated for Best Documentary Feature for the 2025 Academy Awards®. Ito also won the Emerging Filmmaker Award at the 2024 IDA Awards. Ito adapted her own 2017 memoir Black Box to create Black Box Diaries, in which she investigated her own assault by one of Japan’s most high profile journalists and in so doing exposed a shroud of secrecy hanging over sexual assault in her home country. The resulting documentary is a deeply personal and ingenious blend of hard-hitting investigation and intimate portrait of her many years spent pursuing justice. In Japan she became the face of the #MeToo movement, but Ito also became a lightning rod for misogyny and victim-blaming.

Drawing on a vast number of diary entries and recordings, Black Box Diaries is a powerful and awe-inspiring work of personal testimony and investigation, demonstrating the importance of storytelling through documentary.

In this spotlight session, filmmaker, historian and filmmaker Santilla Chingaipe joins Shiori Ito in conversation, as they explore the process of crafting her bold debut and discuss the documentary’s ongoing impact.

 

Image credit: Black Box Diaries (Dogwoof, 2024)