Telling Truth to Power: A Conversation with Shiori Itō on Black Box Diaries and #MeToo in East Asia

About This Event

Journalist and filmmaker Shiori Itō, the first Japanese documentary director nominated for an Academy Award, brings her Black Box Diaries (2024) to Hamilton College. The film offers a powerful account of Itō’s pursuit of truth and justice after surviving sexual violence as a young reporter, exposing both the personal toll and the structural barriers she confronted. Following the screening, Itō will join Belinda Qian He and Yuhan Huang (a co-organizer of the AFQ Docs working group) in a conversation situating her story within the broader #MeToo movement in East Asia. Together, they will explore shared struggles, transnational solidarities, and the power of storytelling in confronting gendered violence and entrenched hierarchies.

Featured Guests

• Shiori Itō, internationally recognized journalist, Academy Award-nominated filmmaker, and survivor-activist.
• Belinda Qian He, Assistant Professor of East Asian Cinema and Media Studies at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.
• Yuhan Huang, Assistant Professor at the Rochester Institute of Technology.

Co-sponsors

• Hamilton College Dean of Faculty Office
• East Asian Languages and Literatures Department
• Cinema and Media Studies Program
• the F.I.L.M. Series
• Central New York Humanities Corridor