Blue Boy Trial

Screening as part of the Japan Foundation Touring Film Programme 2026. This title of this year's programme is Knowing Me, Knowing You: The True Self in Japanese Cinema. 

If you book three or more films in the Japan Foundation Touring Film Programme 2026, each ticket will be discounted to the special price of £8. Simply add the tickets to your basket and the offer will be applied at check-out.

A forgotten trial in 1960s Tokyo challenges the law, society, and the very right to live as oneself.

Tokyo, 1965. The city is booming from the Olympic-driven economic surge. Amid growing internationalisation, the government introduces new measures to reinforce public morals — particularly public prostitution by women. As police intensify their crackdown, they are confounded by the presence of so-called “Blue Boys”: transgender women who, though still legally registered as male, live and work as women. Unable to charge them under the current Anti-Prostitution Law, which only applies to “female” prostitutes, authorities instead arrest Dr. Akagi, the surgeon who performed their gender-affirming operations, accusing him of violating the Eugenic Protection Law for rendering his patients infertile.

Meanwhile, Sachi (newcomer Nakagawa Miyu) a café waitress quietly planning her future with her fiancé hides a past she thought she had left behind — she too was one of Dr. Akagi’s patients. When a defence attorney asks her to testify in court, Sachi — alongside two other transgender women — is forced to confront her history and identity before a society unwilling to see her for who she really is.

Based on the real-life “Blue Boy Incident,” Blue Boy Trial sheds light on a ground-breaking yet long-overlooked case that questioned the legality of gender-affirming surgery — and, more profoundly, what is means to find happiness by being your authentic self. 

With empathy and precision, director IIizuka Kasho (himself a transgender man) and Nakagawa Miyu (also transgender) bring to life a moment that reshaped Japan’s understanding of LGBTQ+ issues and continues to resonate today.

Image: © 2025 “Blue Boy Trial” Film Partners