In the Mood for Love: 'Lost Films' of Philippine Cinema

Those struck with that thing called love say you just know it when you're in love. It's true. After four days of listening to paper presentations about film archives and 'lost' films (archivists believe that there's no such thing as 'lost' films though, only films that are not yet found) in the 7th Association for Southeast Asian Cinemas Conference held in Singapore from June 19-22, I became more deeply in love with Philippine's film and its history, including its 'soon-to-be-found films' from the past. 

Plenary Panel on Challenges on Film Archive
chaired by Bliss Cua Lim (rightmost). Doy Del Mundo
(2nd to the leftmost) shows a slide with Giliw Ko (1938) stars.

After attending this four-day conference, I fully understood the need for an audio-visual archive in the country. Among southeast Asian countries, we are among the last to have an archive. Despite being pioneers in the discourse of archiving, having hosted a conference on archiving in 1996, we only had a State-funded archive last year through Film Development Council of the Philippines (FDCP) as mandated by Administrative Order 26 issued by Pres. Noynoy Aquino. There were attempts in the past to put up an archive though, as mentioned by Bliss Cua Lim in her plenary lecture. She said that based on a study by Australia's National Film and Sound Archive, Mt. Makiling (!) was the proposed site for the national audio-visual archives facility. But due to lack of funds (as always), this project did not materialize. Fast forward to 2011, the Film Development Council of the Philippines identified Tagaytay City as the new site for the Philippine cinema archive because of its cool weather. This is important because film reels (35mm, 16mm) requires low temperature and humidity level for its proper storage.

Doy Del Mundo, one of the archive activists in the country who wrote "Dreaming of a National Audio-visual Archive" way before, discussed about the challenges of putting up an archive in the Philippines (he was also there to present his charming film Superfan). He is part of SOFIA (Society of Filipino Archivists), the leading group that calls for a national film archive. Among the challenges that he enumerated, what I find most agreeable is the fact that there is still a need to develop a culture that values an audio-visual heritage among Filipinos. 

Doy Del Mundo (right) presenting. Beside him is Ray Edmonson,
a well-known Australian archivist who helped restore Giliw Ko (1938).

For me, this is the biggest challenge in archiving because it would require a change of our attitude and viewpoints on history in general and films as part of our culture and heritage. Filipinos are not well-known in valuing history and heritage, except for the indigenous peoples and the cultural workers and educators. Largely it is also because of how history is taught in schools and how film is viewed only as an entertainment medium. But in this conference, film is taken as an archive itself articulating culture of a certain historical period. Viewed as such, films become a document of the past. It is now endowed with historical value. It becomes part of our heritage. But Dr. Roland Tolentino, in his presentation, reminds us that we should be suspicious also of the films that are being selected as part of our audio-visual heritage, especially if done by the State, because of vested interests.

Del Mundo's presentation: "Preventing a Dream from
Turning into a Nightmare: Challenges for the National Film Archive
of the Philippines"

The biggest challenge therefore is not funds or lack of archive supporters in the Congress or Senate, but our way of thinking and attitude regarding our audio-visual heritage. Most people will say "pelikula lang yan!" without fully knowing the stupidity of such remark (similarly, some scholars/researchers from other fields would say, "pelikula lang naman pinagaaralan nyo e. manonood lang ng pelikula. anu bang pinagaaralan nyo sa pelikula? This is as if they are saying it's such a waste of time to study film.) For them, film is for entertainment. Once you have watched it, it's not important anymore. In a society like the Philippines, where poverty is high, film becomes a luxury, and building a million-peso-archive to house these old films is an excess. This is the dominant attitude on film that archive activists need to put up with and battle against. It is a bloody battle. Fortunately, with Briccio Santos at the helm of FDCP, archive activists found a general on their side. Together, they'll battle it out to achieve victory of finally building a home for our 'lost films'.