Last , we went to Mowelfund Museum as a part of our requirements to the subject Cinema101. The first part of our tour there, was the talk of Boots Anson Roa, the president of Mowelfund which stands for movie Welfare Foundation Inc., on her talk, she discussed the history of Mowelfund and the reason why it was built. She said that Mowelfund provides financial assistance to the personnel who works behind the camera in film production.She also told us that the former President Joseph "Erap" Ejercito Estrada, spearheaded the founding of Mowelfund. After her talk, the tour guide also said that there are seminars and workshops that we can attend, but for me, it's a bit expensive (40 thousand pesos).
After the talk, the tour guide said that we can now go inside to the museum. It was really nice to see that there are still artifacts that are about the Philippine and World cinema that this generation could see. In the first itinerary of our museum tour, I saw the early history of the cinema here in the Philippines, the Spanish era and the American era. There are so many things that I noticed when we went to the second floor of the museum, the pictures of the LVN, Premiere, Sampaguita and Lumiere productions. The stars of that time, they were really good looking. Also their films too.
I also saw the editing machine that were used at that time, it was so coool. There were so big and then it was complicated to use too. We also went to the horror room, I thought that, that room was a simulation of the Gabi ng Lagim in Star City, but I'm wrong. It was just a room, especially made for the props that were used in horror films.
My favorite part of the museum was the pictures of the 1970's actors and actresses, it was fun to see their faces before. My favorite picture there was the picture of Gina Pareno, she looked so adorable there.
It was a fun experience to see the past, the present and maybe the future of Philippine cinema in one place. I do hope that this museum will be kept and restored so that the younger generation can still observe the development of cinema in the Philippines.
- KC :D
