LONG-LOST FILMS
“Probe produced stories that are documentary-based and evidence-based, the preservation of which will help with fact-checking in the modern age,” Julie Ann S. Nealega, Probe Archives’ head, said at a talk on film preservation at FDCP in November.
The team uploads on social media its fact-checking shows that use footage from old documentaries as context.
SOFIA also held campus talks as part of their 30th founding anniversary in 2023 to spread awareness about audiovisual heritage among students.
SOFIA is set to hold a summit where member groups like the Mowelfund Film Institute, Fernando Poe Jr. (FPJ) Archives and the University of the Philippines Film Institute can discuss their initiatives.
“We have to strengthen the archiving community,” Ms. Roque said. “Our summit for 2024 will be based on surveys conducted at the pre-summit, so we know if we need workshops on topics like copyright or ethics.”
Archives may involve a filmmaker or students making thesis films, and the jury is still out on an autonomous, exclusively mandated national audiovisual archive.
PFA is bound by being a unit of FDCP, unlike the National Library, National Museum or National Archives of the Philippines, which all stand on their own.
In 2023, the Senate public information committee heard a bill that seeks to set up a National Film Archive of the Philippines. The House of Representatives had also discussed having a separate archiving agency as proposed by Pangasinan Rep. Christopher de Venecia.
Mr. Arawan said they wish to jumpstart the archive’s move to FDCP’s Philippine Film Heritage building in Intramuros, which broke ground in October.
“Unlike our current building, the Film Heritage building will actually be designed for the archives,” he said. “It will also have a cinematheque and a gallery, which will make it an essential part of the Intramuros museum tour.”
This is a major push to increase public access to film archives, but much needs to be done. In other countries, audiovisual archives are housed in old bunkers and protected by heavy vault doors — a staple of few private archives in the Philippines.
A number of Filipino archivists are active in international networks like the Southeast AsiaPacific Audio-Visual Archive Association and the International Federation of Film Archives.
There, they exchange information on archiving processes and comparative research. Filipinos learn from best practices abroad and, most importantly, locate long-lost films, Mr. Arawan said.
He recounted how the Venice Film Festival Archive called PFA one day to say that they had stumbled on a copy of National Artist for Film Manuel Conde’s 1950 biopic Genghis Khan. “We asked for it and restored it since it is a landmark film that introduced Filipino creativity to the world,” he said.
SOFIA’s Ms. Roque said it’s impossible to archive alone because finding material takes many referrals.
This was true for the discovery of Mike de Leon’s 1984 film Sangandaan, which is the original, uncut version of Sister Stella L that was only ever screened in France.
It started with the late Teddy Co chatting with other cinephiles after an event. He had revealed that the movie as Filipinos know it had a different title, a factoid Ms. Roque then pursued with the help of European archivist friends, she said.
It eventually led her to Cinémathèque Française, where she found the 35-mm film in good condition.
“Archiving is collaborative,” she said. “No one can ever do it alone. That’s why we have to bring the community together.”