Last month was a busy geeky month--I presented a paper in a conference on Asian films in Hong Kong and attended a symposium on documentary filmmaking in Selaya, Thailand sponsored by the European Union and the Goethe Institute.
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The biggest camera I've seen donated by the Queen's Theater in HK
that closed down decades after it first opened |
After the official functions, my most awaited part is the lakwatcha. I thoroughly enjoyed the tour of the Hong Kong Film Archive, where the conference participants also watched one of Bruce Lee's early films,
The Orphan (1960).
After the conference, I went to the Hong Kong Arts Centre. I enjoyed this the most in my trip to HK.
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| Brochures for free |
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| Arts Centre Bookstore |
Exhibits on display:
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| A miniature set used in the short film projected |
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The artist drew on each of the page of this dictionary
to create the animation as one flips the pages. |
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| real-time photo developing machine |
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| sound magnet |
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| my delayed reflection |
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| Shoot your own film |
The symposium on documentary filmmaking was held at the Thai Film Archive, where I got to watch a documentary film from Indonesia about the Bali bombers. I watched it with an Indonesian participant and discussed it with her. The inside stories she shared to me add more to my understanding of the situation and the film.
My favorite part of the trip is the tour of the Thai Film Museum. It was my first time to visit one. Thais are really good with museums, making them interactive for the visitors to enjoy. I've visited their national museum years before and my friends and I had so much fun there while learning about the Thailand's history and heritage.
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| The Thai Film Archive |
The film museum, although small, contains film memorabilia that span decades of filmmaking in Thailand. It contains actual props used in movie sets, Apichatpong's scripts (he has a corner in that small film museum), old film cameras (as in, big old cameras), and even ashes of a film that was censored.
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| actual clappers used |
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These pamphlets were distributed to the audience before entering the movie house.
They serve as guide to the plot, dialogue, etc. |
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| old old projector |
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| Ashes of the censored film |
What I enjoyed the most was the screening of a short film documenting the King attending a public event. It was projected using an old-school projector where the projectionist manually spins it at a certain speed so that the pictures move. The sound the projection makes transports me to the early days of cinema. How I wished the first cinema in Escolta was preserved to house a Philippine Film Museum.
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| our guide and the gang |
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| A very famous Thai actor |
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| Memorabilia from a Thai animator |
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| An actual set from an actual Thai film. Audience can watch in the set while filming |
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| Apichatpong's corner. The iconic character from his film Uncle Boonmee |
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| Apichatpong's actual shooting script |
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| The Box Office |
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Movie house owner's office
Because filmmaking is a business |
Just a few weeks ago, I went to Cebu to visit a local film archive owned by a foreigner: the Tioseco-Bohinc Film Archive. I would be writing a paper on this to be presented in a conference in Singapore in June. At the moment, the collection is in the owner's house, but he hopes that it will be housed soon in a proper venue in Cebu City. His 16mm collection of classic films were already transferred to the University of San Carlos, where he teaches, in an "on loan" basis.
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| DVD and Book Collections at the Tioseco-Bohinc Film Archive |
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| The owner and I |
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| 16mm collection, including Citizen Kane |
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Book collection includes early Cahiers du Cinema articles
written by the French New Wave directors |
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