"TOKYO Ainu features the Ainu, an indigenous people of Japan, living in Greater Tokyo (Tokyo and its surrounding areas), who are and actively in promoting their traditional culture in a metropolitan environment away from their traditional homeland, Hokkaido. Shedding a common assumption that all Ainu live in Hokkaido, the film captures the feelings, thoughts and aspirations of Ainu people that who try to follow the Ainu way no matter where they live."
Ainu Living in Tokyo - Getting To Know the Indigenous People of Japan by Osamu Hasegawa "The Japanese government colonized places where the Ainu traditionally lived, and positioned them as an extinct ethnic group. I believe that the lack of awareness regarding the Ainu is the result of an intentional effort." Japan for Sustainability, 24 Dec 2009.
Tokyo’s thriving Ainu community keeps traditional culture alive The article looks at the ways that Ainu people in Tokyo are maintaining and renewing Ainu culture, and at a documentary film being made about the Ainu. Japan Today, 1 Mar 2009. (New link added 02 May 2013).
Ainu Associations in Greater Tokyo An overview of some Ainu organisations and events in the Tokyo area.
Charanke Matsuri: "The festival ties the earth to the heavens. The dance connects people to the universe". The Charanke Festival is a major event bringing together the Ainu and Okinawan communities in Tokyo. It all started more than 20 years ago from a connection between an Ainu and Okinawan feeling a sense of kinship, and developed into the event it is today. More info here.
千葉県君津市 カムイミンタラ 2005年7月末、千葉県君津市、森に囲まれた亀山湖近くの南斜面に、この施設はオープンしました。
Documenting Urban Indigeneity: TOKYO Ainu and the 2011 survey on the living conditions of Ainu outside Hokkaido 都市に住む先住民––記録映画「東京アイヌ」および北海道外に住むアイヌの2011年度生活実態調査 by Simon Cotterill. The main part of the article on the film Tokyo Ainu gives some background to the making of the film and the history Ainu people and organizations in Tokyo before discussing how the film shows the reality of lives of Ainu people living in an urban Tokyo, not the stereotype of rural Ainu life in Hokkaido, explaining for example why Ainu people moved to Tokyo. The second part on the 2011 Survey on the Living Conditions of Ainu outside Hokkaido explains some of the differences between the Ainu Association of Hokkaido and some Ainu organizations in Tokyo and criticisms by Tokyo Ainu of the way the Ainu Policy Promotion Council approached Ainu people in Tokyo as part of it's survey on Ainu Outside of Hokkaido. The Asia-Pacific Journal Vol 9, Issue 45 No 2, November 7, 2011. (The abstract for the article summarizes it as follows: "If acknowledged at all, Japan’s indigenous population the Ainu are usually represented as a rural, exotic group, bound to ancestral homes in Hokkaido and the Northern territories. Yet, large numbers of Ainu, perhaps even the majority of their population, now live in urban centres outside Hokkaido. The recent documentary TOKYO Ainu challenges traditional, detrimental representations of Ainu culture as solely rural and sedentary, and records the complex contemporaneous reality of urban indigeneity lived by those Ainu within Greater Tokyo.")