November 30, 2024
Green House Cinema, Davao del Sur
Dome, First United Building, Manila
“Through the Past, the Future” takes after the title of the editorial by Bono Olgado and Rufus de Rham for Archival Imaginaries, the 9th of the ten issues by NANG, a magazine dedicated to Asian cinema. These lines on the magazine’s front flap succinctly introduce the heart of Issue 9:
[it] considers the powers and limits of both archives and archiving. In so doing, it articulates some of the alternative pasts and speculative futures that these may enable and engender.
In their introduction, Olgado and Rham expound Archival Imaginaries with a question and a definition:
NANG provides us with a creative space for imaginations and speculations as we look at (the) archive/s as a lens by which to interrogate the relationship between cinema and that of our personal traumas and communal identities. We ask, how can we imagine our interactions and imaginatively interact with our recorded past to question the present and propose possibilities for our communities? Archival imaginaries allow us to search, question, and assert our identities and genealogies, whether in relation to our families, countries, or chosen communities with whom we have found home.
It is through the concept of Archival Imaginaries that 98B COLLABoratory and Pasalidahay programmed “Through the Past, the Future,” with films to be shown simultaneously at Manila and Davao in November.
Scheduling the screenings in November is deliberate. Last year, on the first of November, the Filipino film community experienced a great loss with the death of Teddy Co. This year, through our film showings, we would also like to celebrate the life and legacy of Teddy Co who had been instrumental not only in the promotion of Filipino cinema, but also in its conservation and archiving.
Inviting Davao-based Pasalidahay also resonates with Sir Teddy’s dedication to regional cinema. In his 1987 essay “In Search of Philippine Regional Cinema,” he opened with an observation: “The Philippine movie industry has always been centered in Manila.” Almost four decades after the essay’s publication, multiple initiatives – or what he proposed as ‘alternative centers’ or ‘countercenters’ – have sprung up to challenge the aforementioned line. In a way, this project is also a way to contribute and promote his vision.
We acknowledge that 98B COLLABoratory is located in Manila – the heart of the essay’s critique – and we take a curious, engaged, and conscientious stance in this slippery terrain. We move forward with the proposal also with the intent to produce a fruitful discourse on collaboration across different regions.
Text and poster by Lk Rigor
More info: Pasalidahay Facebook · 98B COLLABoratory Instagram
Photos by Andy Montenegro