ENG-1961 — Page 336

PUBLICATIONS, BROADCASTING AND FILMS

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independent producers maintained their high output and produced just over 300 feature films in Chinese for distribution locally and overseas. Local and resident cameramen working for various newsreel and television companies continued during the year to supply film items about Hong Kong to their overseas distributors. Film and television production units also continued to visit the Colony in ever increasing numbers and the 1961 visitors included film-makers from America, Australia, West Germany and Japan. Ruggles and Whelan Enterprises from America spent two months in the Colony making a full length feature film 'Out of the Tiger's Mouth' for Pathé (USA).

Studio production costs are governed by the limited market available. China does not import Hong Kong films and the total audience in Taiwan and among overseas Chinese living in the Philippines and south-east Asia amounts to only about 25 million. Producers must therefore concentrate on quantity rather than quality in order to show a profit. However, several of the larger studios turn out at least one major production costing up to $1 million each year, and at the Eighth Asian Film Festival, held in Manila in March 1961, Hong Kong won top honours for the fourth consecutive year. The Golden Harvest Award for the best actress went to Lin Dai for her performance in the Shaw Brothers film 'Les Belles', which also won the awards for best art direction, music, sound recording and editing. Another Shaw Brothers pro- duction 'The Deformed' won the award for the best black and white photography, and the same film also received the award for the best screen-play.

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Cinema-going is undoubtedly the most popular pastime in Hong Kong and there are now 72 cinemas with 76,972 seats. Hong Kong Island has 27 cinemas (30,316 seats), Kowloon 31 (36,305) and the New Territories 14 (10,351). English-language pictures, which usually carry Chinese sub-titles, are shown in 16 cinemas, with 20,279 seats. A number of cinemas have recently been extensively renovated to compete with the newer buildings, and the majority now have air-conditioning and wide screens.

It is one of the tasks of the Information Services Department to carry out those provisions of the Colony's Places of Public Enter- tainment Ordinance which require that all films must be viewed by a Panel of Film Censors prior to public exhibition, and the