Japanese journalist Shiori Ito's debut film, "Black Box Diaries," is nominated for Best Documentary at this year's Academy Awards, a first for a Japanese director. A harrowing adaptation of her 2017 memoir, "Black Box," the documentary has been praised for its depiction of Ito's alleged sexual assault at the hands of a high-profile Japanese journalist and her ensuing fight for legal justice. But even as the movie racks up accolades, it has been conspicuously absent from theaters in Japan.

Why won't theaters screen it?
Ito's "advocacy" in the face of Japan's "society norms toward sexual assault" made her the "face of Japan's #MeToo Movement," said The Diplomat. At the same time, her film's "portrayal of sexual violence and use of contested footage" has put its Japanese theatrical release in "limbo." 

Japanese theaters are "refusing" to screen the movie due to "legal concerns" stemming from allegations by Ito's former legal team that she had used "unauthorized security footage and audio in her film," said Japan's Kyodo News. This material has been a "source of friction" between Ito and the legal counsel that helped her win a civil case against prominent Japanese journalist Noriyuki Yamaguchi, whom Ito alleges raped her in 2015, said the BBC. Ito's one-time attorneys claim that her using certain hotel CCTV footage "violated trust and put her sources at risk."

Do cultural taboos play a role? 
Ito maintains that the primary reason her film has struggled to find distribution in her country is its subject matter and Japan's ongoing taboos around addressing sexual assault against women by powerful men. "They know it's no legal issue," Ito said to Deadline. "They are more scared about the public voice." 

She also claims Japan's reluctance to address #MeToo allegations prompted her to use the contested footage in the first place. As there are "people in society who continue to deny sexual violence," Ito said in a statement, she concluded that to "convey the reality of sexual violence that has been locked away in a 'black box,' this footage was essential."

Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency is taking aim at wide swaths of the federal government, which could mean cuts to research and U.S. expeditions in Antarctica. With program funding continually being slashed, scientists worry this could lead to a geopolitical struggle at the South Pole and bring vital Antarctic research to a halt. 

Most notable are cuts to the National Science Foundation, which coordinates the majority of American scientific research in Antarctica, overseeing the Office of Polar Programs and the U.S. Antarctic Program. But the future of these programs could be in jeopardy with continued NSF cuts. 

10% of NSF workers fired
The NSF is a $9 billion agency that "supports scientific advancement in practically every field apart from medicine" and helps manage the three U.S. research bases in Antarctica that are staffed year-round, said The New York Times. Of the foundation's 1,450 career employees, DOGE eliminated about 10%.

Research at these stations has been the "bedrock" of the United States' presence in Antarctica, said the Times. But it's not just the staff that could face cuts. The U.S. Coast Guard's Polar Security Cutter program "remains in disarray" and could be a "perfect target" for Musk's "team of cost-cutters," said Forbes. These icebreaker ships help support Antarctic research but are "years late" and "wildly over budget."

Cuts with widespread implications
At these research stations, scientists "operate a number of major research projects, studying everything from climate change and rising sea levels to the cosmological makeup and origins of the universe itself," said Wired. With large funding cuts, many Antarctic scientists and experts "don't know if their research will be able to continue, how U.S. stations will be sustained or what all this might mean for the continent's delicate geopolitics."

Even if these cuts were reversed, it might take a long time for these programs to get going again. Even "brief interruptions will result in people walking away and not coming back," Nathan Whitehorn, a Michigan State University professor and Antarctic scientist, said to Wired. It could "easily take decades to rebuild." Many of the fired NSF employees were program managers for Antarctic projects. Without them, "everything stops."