The idea behind a travelling exhibition set up to celebrate the centenary of Hong Kong film, sponsored by an anti-piracy body, may itself have been pirated, a local publisher claims.
Richard Cook believes the essential elements of the HKFilm100 exhibition, and some components of a longer programme of events around the centenary, are too similar to a project that he pitched to the industry last year for it to be a coincidence.
However, those involved in creating the exhibition say any similarity is - as they say in the end credits of a movie - purely coincidental. The idea of doing something to mark the 100-year anniversary of the making of Stealing a Roast Duck had, they say, been around at least since the centenary of mainland film in 2005.
Mr Cook and a group of other industry veterans had been pitching a travelling exhibition with an installation resembling an old Hong Kong cinema, as well as an online filmmaking competition, a documentary and a book since the middle of last year. That programme was dubbed HKFilm100, which, coincidentally, is the name of the current celebration.
Mr Cook has documents showing he registered the internet domain name HKfilm100.org in October last year. The exhibition's website, HKFilm100.asia, was registered last month.
'The ideas we talked about at length with the industry are exactly what has turned up in this exhibition now,' said Mr Cook, whose proposal was formally rejected by the Film Development Council on February 13. The rejection letter was dated February 19 - the same day the exhibition opened at Times Square.
Edmon Chung, chief executive of DotAsia, which administers the .asia internet domain registry and is chief sponsor of the exhibition, said any similarity to Mr Cook's proposal was unintended.
