I don’t think I’ve ever seen a documentary quite like this before, where the subject is the filmmaker and the act of making the film is one of such courage.

Shiro Itō is a working journalist who applied for a position and was offered a meeting by the bureau chief and senior journalist Noriyuki Yamaguchi. It turned out to be a one-on-one dinner and she started to feel lightheaded. She has no memory of the next few hours but the taxi driver who picked them up said she kept asking to be dropped at the station but was taken to Yamaguchi‘s hotel room. We see the hotel CCTV footage of her being forcibly dragged from the taxi and pulled through the lobby. She came to to find him raping her.

In the Q&A afterward, Itō provided context for how sexual assault and women speaking up about abuse is treated in Japan. She said that traveling to school in uniform on public transport means you’ll get regularly groped and when or if you report it, the police will say there’s nothing they can do. You learn to not speak up. With Japan’s rape law 120 years old, the age of consent is 13 and you need physical evidence of violence to have any chance of prosecution. It’s not surprising that studies say only 4% of rapes are reported.

For Itō, her initial report was swept under the rug and it took a second complaint two years later and going public to get any interest. But Yamaguchi has friends in high places, including President Abe who he was about to publish an autobiography about. So it was quashed.

Itō talks about acting as a journalist and investigating her own cases being her own way to cope and so she does this while secretly recording all conversations and filming where she can. To say she made herself vulnerable is an understatement but she doggedly pursues justice and writes and publishes a book called Black Box (a metaphor for the confining and hiding of accountability) six months before the US #MeTo movement erupts.

It’s not all gloom – she’s trying to live a life and separate herself from emotion – but there are some gut wrenching moments. There is some catharsis and Itō talked in the Q&A about the benefits of making a film or writing a book if you have suffered trauma. She talked about having to take the hotel to a civil court and pay $4,500 just to get the CCTV footage. She had no angry words in Japanese to hurl at Yamaguchi when he was raping her as women are taught to always be polite.

She got a standing ovation for her steadfastness and courage in allowing herself to be a target and a role model. And since then the law has changed – the age of consent is now 15.