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Academy of Film and HKBU Library launch database on film news in early Chinese newspapers for free public access

A launching seminar was held yesterday (18 March) for a collaborative digital humanities project between Professor Emilie Yeh, Director of Academy of Film of the School of Communication, and the Hong Kong Baptist University Library. The resulting database on film-related materials in early Chinese newspapers is now available online for free public access. Among the participants at the launching seminar was Ms Janet Young, Head of Hong Kong Film Archive.

Professor Emilie Yeh, principal investigator of the project, introduced the background of the database, saying that the research team spent three years to collect over 22,000 records on film advertisements, news and reviews published between 1900 and 1950 in eight selected Chinese newspapers from late Qing to the Republican era in four cities: Hong Kong, Guangzhou, Hangzhou and Tianjin. Professor Yeh said that during the research process, new primary historical documents were uncovered which greatly facilitated the reconstruction of the early cinema scene in these regions. She also shared some interesting findings, such as the discovery of various translations of the word “movie” used in different regions in China.

Dr Liu Hui, Associate Professor of the College of Mass Communication of Shenzhen University who served as the project co-investigator, discussed the missing links and inaccurate assumptions in existing Chinese film history due to a lack of primary historical documents. In addition, Ms Rebekah Wong, Senior Assistant Librarian and Head of the Digital and Multimedia Services Section, introduced some of the key features of the database.

Although there is a vast amount of film-related materials in early Chinese newspapers which carry historical significance, it can be a challenge to locate. This online database, with a keyword index and easy search function goes beyond geographical limitations and will serve as an essential reference for future research on Chinese film history. For details of the Project, please visit http://digital.lib.hkbu.edu.hk/chinesefilms/.

This is the second digital humanities project. The first database created through collaboration between the University Library and scholars was “Tribute Data Curation”.

	(From left) Associate Librarian Mr Paul Lee, Ms Rebekah Wong, Professor Emilie Yeh and Dr Liu Hui attend the launching seminar