With support from The UNESCO Memory of the World (PH), a new movement to recognize cinema as the world’s documentary heritage needing protection and preservation is launched with the nationwide advocacy to use cinema for education. The Pedagogical Cinema kicks off with a launching program featuring Nick Deocampo’s “The Saga of Philippine Cinema.” Believing that education starts with a knowledge of history, the program combines a study of Philippine history with the understanding of a medium that has popular appeal to students and the public. In glorious 3D animation, Philippine history is recreated, giving cinema the enviable task of giving life to the social forces which defined Filipino identity and the cinema that helped shape it.
A program tailored for students and teachers it begins its nationwide journey at the UPFI Film Center in UP Diliman on December 4 Monday at 5 p.m.. Tickets for only P100. Due to limited seating, viewers need to pre-register to reserve seats: https://tinyurl.com/SagaofPHCinemaUPFI
Those who will make reservations need to be present at the venue fifteen minutes before the event, otherwise walk-in viewers will be admitted. Classes and organizations are welcome to attend. Sixteen universities, NGOs, and local government cultural and heritage committees have booked for 2024. Nationwide bookings can be made by sending a letter of intent to sponsor to: nadeocampo@yahoo.com.ph
The program consists of film screenings and lectures. Synopses of featured films:
CINE TALA (THE MOVIE CHRONICLES)
OPENING FILM
Dec 4 Mon 5 p.m.
A film historian (played by National Artist for Theater Tony Mabesa) recalls the history of Philippine cinema from its colonial beginnings to its national maturity. Featured are movie stars of bygone eras like Rosa del Rosario and Rogelio de la Rosa in enduring film classics like Maalaala Mo Kaya?
CINE>SINE: SPANISH BEGINNINGS OF PHILIPPINE CINEMA
Dec 5 Tue 5 p.m.
The documentary recalls the Spanish past of Philippine cinema through language, material culture, aesthetics, and ideology. Featured are phenomenal stars like Nora Aunor and Christopher de Leon in unforgettable classics like Himala and Ganito Kami Noon, Paano Kayo Ngayon?
FILM: AMERICAN BEGINNINGS OF PHILIPPINE CINEMA
Dec 6 Wed 5 p.m.
The American past of Philippine cinema has contributed technology, capital, aesthetics, and consumerist ideology to make movies a popular culture. Iconic stars like Fernando Poe, Sr. appears in Zamboanga and Anita Linda and Hilda Koronel star in Lino Brocka’s masterpiece, Hellow, Soldier! to provide an affirmation as well as a counter-reading of Hollywood’s excessive dominance.
EIGA: CINEMA DURING WORLD WAR II
Dec 7 Thurs 5 p.m.
The destruction brought about by the Japanese occupation has wrought havoc to cinema’s growth and made propaganda its cinematic contribution. Movie idols are featured in war-themed films like Leopoldo Salcedo in the propaganda movie, Dawn of Freedom, and the explosive combination of Nora Aunor, Christopher de Leon and Bembol Rocco in Tatlong Taong Walang Dios
PELIKULA: THE BIRTH OF PHILIPPINE CINEMA
Dec 8 Fri 5 p.m.
Since motion pictures came into the hands of photographer Jose Nepomuceno, cinema flourished as a homegrown cultural expression that made the once-colonial movies into a popular national experience. Excerpts from pioneering films like Giliw Ko and interviews of film historians like the American scholar Dr. Charles Musser and Swedish Nepomuceno scholar Nadi Tofighian make this an important film document to watch.
MARTIAL LAW FILMS
Dec 9 Sat 2 p.m.
Films produced during the period of martial law and its aftermath are studied for their social and semiotic significance, revealing hidden subversions contained within the cinematic texts. Lino Brocka’s films are decoded for their use of film language and visual semiotics in movies like Bayan Ko: Kapit sa Patalim starring Gina Alajar and Philip Salvador and Tinimbang Ka Ngunit Kulang with Lolita Rodriguez, Mario O’Hara and Christopher de Leon.
PHILIPPINE ALTERNATIVE CINEMA
Dec 9 Sat 5 p.m.
Outside the mainstream cinema is the alternative world of short films, documentaries, experimental films, and all things that are cinematically oppositional. A wide array of shorts is featured from the mythopoeic films of Raymond Red, to controversial documentaries like Oliver, wild animations like Roxlee’s Tronong Puti, and nihilist films like Regiben Romana’s Pilipinas.
See you at the screenings!
