It’s been about two years since women in the Japanese film industry began speaking out publicly against the sexual abuse they have suffered at the hands of powerful men as they struggled up the professional ladder.
The results, however, have been mixed. Victims and their supporters have organized to press for reform, while alleged abusers continue to find defenders, as evidenced by the recent Blu-ray releases in the U.S. and U.K. of an action film starring Tak Sakaguchi, an actor accused of allegedly being involved in multiple incidents of sexual assault.
Both the positive and negative strands of Japan’s belated #MeToo movement are given voice in “Blue Imagine,” the debut feature of Urara Matsubayashi, 31. An actor, producer and director, Matsubayashi’s own experience with sexual assault informed her concept of the film, which premiered at this year’s International Film Festival Rotterdam.