The Philippines has a long history of cinema that stretches back to 1897 and has embraced every sort of genre. Like all cultures each film is a peek into the hearts and minds of Filipinos of the era when a particular movie was made. Marcos recognized the power of film and with the help of Giovanni Volpi, whose family founded the Venice Film Festival, he organized the 1975 Metro Manila Film Festival. Likewise his wife Imelda built the Manila Film Center which was designed to be the first national film archive as well as a place to showcase cinema. The Center hosted the first Manila International Film Festival in 1982.
So one would think that it is great thing that Duterte has declared September as "Philippine Film Industry Month."
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| https://entertainment.inquirer.net/403007/duterte-declares-september-as-philippine-film-industry-month |
“[T]here is a need to recognize the invaluable contribution and sacrifices of all stakeholders and sectors of the film industry, as well as provide avenues to showcase and celebrate the achievements and progress of the discipline of film and filmmaking,” Duterte said in the proclamation made public Thursday.
The President directed the Film Development Council of the Philippines to lead the observance of the Philippine Film Industry Month and identify the programs, projects, and activities for its celebration.
Duterte also encouraged other government agencies, state universities and colleges, local government units and the private sector to promote the programs of the Philippine Film Industry Month.
On principle who could not agree more? Every nation needs to cherish its filmography. The first Philippine film is Dalagan Bukid (Country Maiden) from 1919 and it is now a lost film like so many others.
Dalagang Bukid (English: Country Maiden) is a 1919 Filipino silent film directed by José Nepomuceno. It is the first Filipino feature film to be locally produced in the Philippines. Like all of Nepomuceno's works, Dalagang Bukid is now a lost film.
It is a sad thing that across the world there are so many lost films. The antidote is film preservation and restoration. That is the job of the national film archives.
The Film Developmemt Council of the Philippines (FDCP) is the national agency under the Office of the President of the Republic of the Philippines responsible for film policies and programs to ensure the economics, cultural and educational development of the Philippine Film Industry. It aims to encourage the film industry to create quality films - from development, to production, to distribution and exbihition - and to conduct film - related events that enchance the skills of the Filipino talents. The agency also leads the film industry's participation in domestic and foreign film markets and local and international film festivals to promote and position Philippine cinema to be globally competitive. It also tasked to preserve and protect films as part of the country's national cultural heritage through film archiving.
The Film Development Council of the Philippines, FDCP, was founded in 2002. That was 19 years ago. But to this day they do not have proper storage facilities for the films they archive.
As of July 2020, the PFA Collection count is at 26, 171 elements — the film collection (16mm, 35mm, and super) is at 12,985 and the video tape collection (U-matic, Betacam-SP, Betamax, and VHS) is at 8,753. The audio collection has an estimated 600 open reels and cassette tapes while the digital assets are 833 (DVD, VCD, LTO, and hard drives).
Maintaining the PFA, which is among the mandates of the FDCP, is paramount to effectively archive and protect our cinematic heritage. Around 65-percent of our film copies are already destroyed, with the remaining ones that are unpreserved in danger of damage as each day goes by.
But while our efforts to sustain our current facilities continue to be a priority, the long-term vision of FDCP for the Philippine Film Archive is a state-of-the-art permanent storage facility. So that’s what we did: to start the quest of finding a property for our cinematic treasures.
With the support of the Department of Tourism, Department of Finance, and Tourism Infrastructure and Enterprise Zone Authority, the FDCP embarked on a partnership for the construction of the Film Archive Heritage Building in Intramuros.
The construction was supposed to take place this year in Beaterio de la Compañia de Jesus, Intramuros, Manila, but due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the plans were temporarily put on hold. The facility will be a 4-storey structure that will be able to cater to the multi-faceted elements of film archiving.
It will have laboratories and working areas where audiovisual elements can be inspected, cleaned, and repaired; digitization rooms for scanning, capturing, and post video-editing; and climate-controlled vaults for film reels and analogue tape materials. It will also have a theater plus a media library for students, researchers, and the public who want to view digitized films.
Despite the pandemic and the halt in some of our plans for PFA, the PFA Restoration Program is still ongoing. The program puts film reel movies back together by rescuing decaying film stock and preserving the film stock’s images.
It appears the FDCP is not fully equipped to carry out their mission. But ABS-CBN is. Or was.
The ABS-CBN Film Restoration Project began in 2011 and had restored hundreds of films. They had the budget and the facilities to store them. Sadly when their franchise was not renewed this project was forced to shut down.
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| https://entertainment.inquirer.net/384429/devastating-effects-of-abs-cbns-film-restoration-and-archives-group-shutdown |
“What will happen to our films now?”
This is the question that key industry players are asking now that ABS-CBN’s Film Restoration and Archives group has announced that it would be shutting down, along with most of the departments of the broadcasting network starting Aug. 31.
This was an effect of the Kapamilya network’s failed bid to renew its franchise for another 25 years.
“I want to emphasize several points. First of all, restoration and archiving are not the work of a private company, but of the government. It should be the one to preserve artifacts of culture,” he pointed out.
“Up to this day, the only ones that are doing restoration in the country are the FDCP (Film Development Council of the Philippines)—which is the government—and the FPJ Studio, which is doing really well. Even the FDCP, with its budget to restore films can only do two films a year. It has the National Film Archives, but, unfortunately, they can only do so much with their budget.
“Also, ABS-CBN is the only one with the proper storage and archive facility—nobody else has one because it takes a lot of money to maintain. I’m also worried that what happened to our archives in the ‘80s might happen again today. We lost so many films before. You see, aside from ABS-CBN being the only one restoring films, it is the only one looking for films and acquiring them. A lot of the films that private production houses used to own are now left in the care of families whose lolo was among those who made them. These films are left in the closet and are starting to smell like vinegar. Those titles may never see the light of day again if we don’t have a group like ABS-CBN to save them."
"Preserving our heritage." That is what these two filmmakers say ABS-CBN was doing by preserving and restoring films. How can anyone disagree? But the only company with the proper storage facilities and budget to preserve the nations's film heritage has been shut down on orders of Duterte. It is a terrible irony and he likely either doesn't know or doesn't care or both.
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