Newly discovered Bonifacio movie

WHEN I was young, as in 11 years young, I was inspired by José Rizal who seems to have preserved every important memento of his life. So, I set aside a cabinet in my childhood house to put the souvenirs of my youth, including old drawings in which I created histories of imaginary cities and sample essays of most of my elementary classmates. I already knew the value of archiving in understanding the past.

When I composed the “Historian’s Prayer” a year ago, I wrote, “Protect our sources from destruction and neglect and preserve our national memory.” I was thinking of so many memorabilia we lost during typhoon “Ondoy.” But I also said that I guess those that will remain and will surface were the ones whose stories are meant to be told. My greatest fear for my memorabilia happened when

Tarlac last August 26 and burned that cabinet save one letter and one card from my late grandmother.

We don’t have much of a culture of archiving in this country. When one administration is replaced by another, autographed “To Mr. Vic Bonus.”

It was good that film historian Teddy Co, who was one of those who gave a lecture during the opening, was able to track down the son of Vic Bonus — Lito Bonus, who was also present at the event. The pictures in the exhibit came from his family archive and through his recollections of his father’s stories we are able to

in the history of Philippine cinema.

Today we call them production designers, their role in the cinema industry recognized. Before they were merely “art directors” and production design was done by carpenters. Vicente Bonus was Mausser’s art director at Movietone. And

do not exist anymore, the photos that were preserved showed us that did beautiful sets for those movies.

There was one photo of a histori