Local filmmaker Lucinda Spurling is calling for all Government records held at the Bermuda Archives to be made available to the public for free.

The director — whose history documentary 'The Lion and The Mouse' won this year's audience choice award at the Bermuda International Film Festival — told The Royal Gazette that the fees for using images held at the Archives were crippling and had forced her to stop using the facility altogether.

"I think the fees endanger the collection because it means people can't use them," she said. "With the private collections, usage fees should be at the discretion of the owners. The Bermuda Archives is not a commercial body. They aren't Corbis. I think all the Government records should be in the public domain i.e. no fee, like the National Archives in the United States."

Ms Spurling believes she was one of six people whose complaints to Ombudsman Arlene Brock about the Archives last year sparked an investigation, the findings of which were presented to MPs last week.

Ms Brock made a series of recommendations in her report, Atlantica Unlocked, including that the Archives Advisory Council (AAC) review whether usage fees should be charged for items in the public domain.

Ms Brock said the council needed to consider whether there should be a waiver for scholarly and cultural works and come up with a better way of defining "commercial use".

Ms Spurling said she suffered because although she makes no money from her films, which are used in schools, she is charged as if she is a profit-making entity because she owns a company. She said broadcasters are charged a higher rate than other users. "It costs $263 per image plus a 25 percent labour charge, plus about $30 for duplication," she explained. "That's the highest usage fees I have ever come across in my career."

Ms Spurling spent about $2,000 on images from the Archives for her award-winning film 'Rare Bird', about the return to Bermuda of the Cahow seabirds from the brink of extinction. She got a waiver from the Premier's office for 'The Lion and The Mouse' — a film tracing Bermuda's 400-year relationship with the US — thanks to the efforts of former Culture Minister Dale Butler and the committee organising the Island's 400th anniversary celebrations.

"That was not normal practice," she said. "I was lucky enough to get that special dispensation. I wasn't able to do it on the last film."

She said of her films: "They are not profitable ventures. After 'Rare Bird', I ended up $15,000 in debt and I'm $30,000 in debt for my next film. They are really labours of love."

Ms Spurling said she was disappointed the Ombudsman's inquiry did not focus more on fees and questioned whether the AAC was an active committee. "As far as I'm concerned, they are pretty much a defunct body," she said.

She now opts not to use the Archives at all and sources the images she needs from other places. Ms Brock's inquiry found evidence of maladministration at the Archives. The Cabinet Office has until the end of August to decide whether to implement her recommendations.

She noted that local non-broadcast users are charged $110 and international users $166 for the use of an image.

AAC Chairman Richard Ground said yesterday the council would meet to discuss the Ombudsman's report and consider its recommendations.

"Until that has happened, I don't think that it would be appropriate for me to comment further," he said.

• Are you a user of Bermuda Archives? Let us know what you think of the Ombudsman's report, which can be found at www.ombudsman.bm. E-mail your views to sstrangeways@royalgazette.bm.