Mindanao film archive launched

THE first ever Mindanao digital film archive was unveiled in a soft launch on December 23 at the Cinematheque Center Davao.

The archive is envisioned to become a publicly-accessible resource that can be used by students, educators, researchers, filmmakers, tourists, film enthusiasts, and anyone interested in Mindanao’s culture and heritage as captured through moving images.

Its mission is to collect, preserve, and safeguard the moving images that capture the rich and diverse culture and heritage of Mindanao.

The archive’s main feature is an interactive kiosk stationed at the Cinematheque Davao, which hosts screenings of Filipino and independent films in its 120-seater facility.

“The Mindanao Film Archive is so far the first and only one of its kind in the country,” said Dax Cañedo, project manager and president of the Mindanao Film and Television Development Foundation, Inc., which will manage the project.

The Cinematheque kiosk will only be a pilot site and the MFA is looking at setting up interactive kiosks at strategic locations such as arts centers, libraries, museums, educational institutions, he added.

The project is made possible with the support of the National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA) in partnership with the Film Development Council of the Philippines, in which the operation of the Cinematheque is under.

“The archive is still in its developing stage which means that this will be a continuing process of collection and actively seeking out audio-visual materials that have relevance to Mindanao’s growing cinematic and audio-visual heritage,” said Jay Rosas, curator of the MFA.

He added that the team is currently working on the database collection of existing Mindanao short films exhibited during the past Mindanao Film Festivals.

“Since the archive plans to be comprehensive, it will also seek to include other materials like relevant news clips, music videos, AVPs, documentary footage, and anything that may have cultural and cinematic relevance to Mindanao,” he said, adding that digitization is also an element that will be part of the archiving work.

Cañedo said that they will also partner with existing agencies doing archiving work particularly the recently-organized Davao City Public Archive. (PR)