Restoring ‘Portrait,’ the work of 3 national artists

Tough sell

But it would still be a tough sell even in Filipino, De Leon acknowledged. “It was too cerebral and dealt with ilustrado culture, which very few people can relate to,” he said, adding that he hopes things would be different this time.

“Even if the film has only one screening at the CCP, I feel that I should try to find the representative audience that once eluded it 50 years ago,” the director said.

Nick Joaquin

De Leon’s book project, a monograph released in line with the launch of the restored “Portrait,” should stir things up a bit.

“The book was written by Angelo R. Lacuesta and designed by Cesar Hernando and Tom Estrera III,” the filmmaker said. “I’ve always wanted to publish a book, but past attempts fizzled out. This time, I have full control and spending nobody else’s money but my own.”

Titled “Contra Mundum, A Restoration of Nick Joaquin’s ‘A Portrait of the Artist as Filipino,’” the book is primarily about the Avellana classic, but will also touch on the era of the movie studio and the role of De Leon’s grandmother and father in it.

History of PH cinema

De Leon said the story of “Portrait” also recounts the history of Philippine cinema in particular and the Philippines in general.

“The story started in 1939, when my grandmother (Doña Sisang de Leon) produced ‘Giliw Ko’ under LVN (productions), and ended with ‘Portrait,’ which was produced by my father in 1965,” the director said. The book spanned the years “from President Manuel L. Quezon’s peace time in 1939 to the decline of the movie industry and the [election] of President Ferdinand Marcos in 1965.”

“Portrait” is De Leon’s second restoration project with the FDCP, NFAP and L’Immagine Ritrovata, a renowned film laboratory based in Bologna, Italy, after he restored Lino Brocka’s “Maynila sa mga Kuko ng Liwanag,” for which he is credited as producer and director of photography.

Putting “Portrait” together entailed painstaking detective work that spanned two continents, Asia and Europe.

Like those of “Maynila,” the original camera negatives of “Portrait” are stored in the Asian Film Archive in Singapore after they were turned over by De Leon to the Asian Film Archive in 2005, the year of his father’s death and the year when the family movie production outfit, LVN, was sold.