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feasibility. This would allow the Archive to duplicate the materials deposited for conservation purposes and to manufacture reference copies, in whatever format, if required. Reasonable public access to the materials deposited on the premises of the Archive should be provided. Also, the depository should remain the property of the Archive. However, there should be full protection of the producers' or distributors' copyrights with regard to the commercial exploitation of the material deposited. The rights holders should be guaranteed access to the materials deposited as well.
Role of the Urban Council in the establishment of the Film Archive as to
I am confident that the Urban Council as a major cultural institution in Hong Kong should support the idea of setting up a Film Archive. At present, a feasibility study by an overseas expert is completed through the initiative of the Urban Council and the funding by the central government. The project needs central government involvement on matters like legislation and land appropriation which are outside Urban Council's jurisdiction. In fact, it is desirable to involve the government in substantive matters to testify its commitment. The relationship between the Urban Council and the future Film Archive, if the project is to be successfully launched, will be determined by the attitude of the government and the final decision on the feasibility study. In my humble opinion, it is ideal to establish the Film Archive in Hong Kong as a cultural activity of the Urban Council similar to the existing International Film Festival Office. If this approach is adopted, the Film Archive would be financed and administered by the Urban Council with staff recruited as permanent or temporary employees, with the added advantage that the venues of the Council can be readily exploited to further promote film appreciation as a cultural activity. In conclusion, I would like to support the following recommendation from the feasibility study, 'Whatever option is adopted the need for action is urgent. Significant losses are occurring every day in Hong Kong's hot and humid climate, and any plan to collect and conserve Hong Kong's vanishing film heritage will make a difference. A fully developed archive will not only stop the losses, it can make a substantial contribution to Hong Kong's cultural life.'
Sir, with these remarks, we need action, we need the courage to commit ourselves. I urge fellow Councillors to address themselves to the very serious loss of films in Hong Kong and contribute towards the conservation of our heritage. Sir, with these remarks, I support the motion.
(Dr. Ronald D. B. LEUNG left the meeting at 5.11 p.m.)
MR. DAVID P. S. FONG (in Cantonese):—Mr. Chairman, as I have to attend the District Board meeting on the eleventh, I am grateful to you for letting me speak today. I shall just express my personal views which do not represent anybody. I just try to speak what I think and hope there will be useful and constructive feedbacks from fellow Councillors.
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About this time the year before last, we read from the newspapers that District Board representatives might become members of the Urban Council, and that starting from 1 April 89, Urban Councillors would no longer be ex-officio members of the district boards. Many people then believed only half of the news. They thought that Urban Councillors should not be concurrently DB members, since candidates in the UC election wanted only to be elected as Urban Councillors. The government therefore should not give them the free gift of a DB seat. Though everyone knew that this system had been adopted for several years, the view taken by the district boards was somehow quite different. But as for the report that there could be District Board representatives in the Urban Council, this was totally unbelievable because each district had already got their elected representatives in the Urban Council, which sufficiently represented their views, making this a merely overlapping move. However, unexpectedly, the government did announce this decision in late March 1988, and, at the same time we also heard that the government might in 1991 abolish the practice of having district board representatives in the Legislative Council. We then had the sudden impression that the government was replacing those originally allocated seats in the Legco with the seats in the Urban Council, in other words, the government took our apple away and gave us back a peanut. Whether this is true or not, nobody knows.
In the past, generally speaking, Urban Councillors did not participate in district affairs as frequently as DB members. This was understandable because the former had to shoulder their responsibilities in the UC as well, and hence could not help losing balance in performing their duties both at the UC and the DB. But in the eyes of the DB members, the status of Urban Councillors is higher than theirs and in fact this is the case in the 3-tier structure of the government. The work of DB members is multi-faceted and more comprehensive. They have to deal with the general affairs of the district, like the work at the Area Committee, Arts and Culture Council, Elderly Council, Recreation and Sports Council, District Fight Crime Committee and other councils concerning the environment, transport and community building and also the work related to the central policy of the government. The nature of their work is indeed multi-farious and DB members have to be 'all-rounders'. Since the district board is a consultative body which gets in touch with the grass-roots, fights for their rights and helps solve all their problems, therefore DB members often come across many unusual and strange cases in the meet-the-public scheme. Anyway, people will ask for the help of DB members, regardless of the nature of their problems, in the hope of having their problems solved. As everyone knows, the power of DB members is limited but to solve all kinds of problems for the citizens, they got to be ‘almighty'. In helping the people, they will very often encounter senior officials who like to quote rules and laws as their excuse or overbearing ‘high-ranking' Councillors. To whom can they unload their grievances for the treatment they have been subjected to and the agony and worries they have experienced when waiting for a decision to be made?
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