France pledges aid for PH film archives

FRENCH Ambassador Thierry Borja de Mozota and Film Development Council of the Philippines Chair Briccio Santos sign the Declaration of Intent toward making the FDCP’s National Film Archives a world-class institution for the restoration of the country’s cultural heritage in films. photo:Jude Bautista

French Ambassador to the Philippines Thierry Borja de Mozota and Film Development Council of the Philippines (FDCP) Chair Briccio Santos recently signed a Declaration of Intent in which France promises to lend assistance to the Philippines in upgrading of the National Film Archives’ facilities and capabilities.

The Philippines stands to benefit greatly from the French National Archives, which houses what could be the largest and most systemized archival collection in the world.

The landmark deal was sealed at the French ambassador’s Forbes Park residence last Nov. 15, in the presence of visiting officials from the National Center of Cinema under the French Ministry of Culture —Olivier Guillemot, financial and legal director of the CNC (Centre national du cinéma et de l’image animée/National Center of Cinematography and the moving image) and Béatrice de Pastre, director of the archives collection of the CNC. Also present was Stephanie Rabourdin, regional audiovisual attaché of France for Southeast Asia.

Under the Declaration of Intent, the French government, through its embassy, will support “the full development of FDCP’s film archive system in accordance with the French model.” This will be done through facilitating the archiving and audiovisual training of FDCP technicians, access to substantive film archiving equipment and transfer of new technologies.

The training has already been initiated, with the recent departure for Paris of two top FDCP archive technicians, Eros Arbilon and Ramoncito Nocum, who will observe restoration and storage techniques in the advanced laboratories of the French National Center for Cinema.

Under Section 3 (10) of Republic Act No. 9167 of the Philippines, the FDCP is mandated to establish “a film archive in order to conserve and protect film negatives and/or prints as part of the nation’s historical, cultural and artistic heritage.”

The FDCP is responsible for the retrieval, restoration, rehabilitation and safekeeping of all endangered, rare and classic films produced in the Philippines that are considered part of the national heritage. The National Film Archives, officially under its jurisdiction, is now the repository of many classic Filipino films—some of them dating back to the prewar period and the “golden age of Philippine cinema” from the ’40s to the ’60s.

One of the FDCP’s projects involves restoring old films to near-pristine states, and their eventual digitization.