Items filtered by date: August 2024

Documentary film maker Gwen Isaac (right) and Victoria University scholar and specialist in women’s film Dr Missy Molloy (left) led the Women in Film and Television critiquing Q&A session which followed the screening of Sundance hit documentary ‘Black Box Diaries’.

Panelist Gwen Isaac described the film as a personal favourite and an “important and brave film” of the New Zealand International Film Festival. The film features the extraordinary true story of journalist Shiori Ito (centre) who also directs the film.

Shiori Ito’s documentary came out of her book ‘Black Box’ that documents the true story of her four year crusade to bring her own experience of sexual violence into the light in Japan.

‘Black Box’ documents both her story of rape and making power accountable for crimes that in Japan have traditionally being marginalised or unreported.

Journalist-activist Shiori risked everything in exposing her perpetrator, a high ranking professional with powerful connections.

During the Q&A Ito reminded the audience that in Japan 97 percent of sexual violence claims go unreported. Ito’s story echoes the concerns of feminist scholar Chizuko Ueno citing that Japan’s gender issues are a ‘’human disaster.’’

Responding to the panel Ito noted that “if there is trauma, make a film.”

Time magazine identified Ito as one of the world’s most powerful people. The Women in Film and TV NZ panel noted that the film is not currently being taken up by a streamer due to complexities around the way streamers negotiate rights for films for different territories. The irony is that this insight into the Japanese patriarchal legal system may never actually be able to be seen by Japanese audiences.

Black Box Diaries as documentary film throws still further light, quite literally, on the extent of a pervasive patriarchal judicial system and how this culture comes at the expense of legal and social justice for women.

First person testimony from Ito blending with footage of parliamentary confrontations with Japan’s President Abe underlines the lengths a woman has to endure to take on the burden of the fight.

Ito’s assailant was protected by impenetrable layers of boxes and this is shown in a myriad of different ways. Yet there are moments of real hope portrayed by the men and women supporting Ito at considerable personal cost that save the film from becoming an ordeal.

The Wellington screening followed on the heels of the film’s launch at the Sundance festival. 

Gwen Isaac, a screen production lecturer at the National Academy of Screen Arts, Massey University, Wellington, is the director-producer of short documentary Tokyo Woman, an examination of feminizumu (Japanese feminist movement] through intimate profiles of three diverse women  https://vimeo.com/477729817

Her recent feature documentary  Ms.Information  www.msinformationmovie.com featured at 2023 NZIFF film festival and is a turbulent front row seat revealing the  trials and tribulations of microbiologist Dr Siouxsie Wiles, a key scientific figure of the New Zealand Covid-19 containment campaign.