Indigenous Japanese (Ainu) and Indigenous Australian Cultural Exchange Australian Tour 2011 (Melbourne and Tasmania) 　A Brief Note on TOKYO Ainu, a Documentary Film 　　 TOKYO Ainu is a two-hour feature documentary film on the Ainu residents of the Greater Tokyo area. Many of them migrated out of Hokkaido, or “Ainumosir” in their language, in the postwar decades due to severe discrimination and job scarcity. The Ainu are an indigenous people of Japan, having mainly inhabited Hokkaido, the northernmost main island of Japan. The Japanese government only finally recognized them as indigenous to Japan in 2008. No official statistics are available on the Ainu population. An oft-quoted number is 25,000 in Hokkaido, but this is a questionable figure as it is common knowledge that there are thousands of Ainu who are afraid of publicly acknowledging their ethnic identity due to discriminatory attitudes still held among Japanese in Hokkaido. A former head of the Ainu Association of Hokkaido, the largest Ainu organization in Japan, once stated that the Ainu population throughout Japan might be as large as half a million. In Greater Tokyo alone, the estimated population is 5,000 to 10,000, based on a survey done in 1988. Through interviews and footage of their cultural and political activities, the film depicts how Ainu that left Hokkaido in the hope of forgetting traumatic experiences and finding a new life in the city, were drawn back to their traditional culture and values, and found themselves becoming engaged in a struggle to maintain their culture away from their traditional homeland and demand recognition as an indigenous people. Serenity runs through the film as there is no narration or background music. An independent film maker with a background of an award-winning TV director, Hiroshi Moriya directed the film by ascetically refraining from resorting to cinematographic extravaganza and simply listening through his camera to what these members of the Ainu community had to say. TOKYO Ainu is an untold story of a group of Ainu, who are doubly marginalized because they are not only Ainu but also urban Ainu. It begins with reminiscences by the eldest elder in Greater Tokyo and ends with a rendition of “Amazing Grace” sung by an Ainu jazz singer, who revealed her Ainu background in order to sing the song in the Ainu language. Throughout the film, interviews are interspersed with Ainu songs, dances and rituals. The film provides a good introduction to the history and culture of the Ainu and a glimpse into multicultural Japan. Details Official Site: http://www.2kamuymintara.com/film/eng/top.htm Directed by: Hiroshi Moriya Produced by: TOKYO Ainu Film Production Committee back to TOP page