Five years after the Weinstein scandal broke in the United States, which sparked the #MeToo movement around the world, a series of accusations of physical assault and sexual violence are shaking the cinema sector in Japan.
In March, the weekly Shukan Bunshun revealed that actor and director Hideo Sakaki coerced several actresses into having sex with him. Then it was the turn of famous filmmaker Sion Sono, known for works like Love Exposure (2008) or Cold Fish (2010), to be accused by the magazine Shukan Josei for demanding sexual favors from actresses in exchange for roles in his films.
In the process, in mid-April, actress Kiko Mizuhara, one of the most fashionable celebrities of late in the archipelago (seen in The Ballad of the Impossible (2011) or Aristocrats, released in France on March 30), published a column on the website of the weekly Shukan Bunshun. She writes there:
“Countless times I have been the victim of verbal sexual harassment from male directors, and had unpleasant experiences on set.”
Finally, a survey