The anniversary of the EDSA People Power Revolution is next week, on Feb. 25. It’s an especially important one this year with the elections coming up. After all, the presidential candidate leading the Pulse Asia surveys is dictator Ferdinand Marcos’ son. Now, more than ever, people need to understand the reality of the Martial Law era.
So if you don’t have any Saturday night plans (let’s face it—it’s still the pandemic; you don’t, don’t lie), why not hop into this upcoming Twitter Space?
At 8 p.m. on Saturday, Feb. 19, two popular Twitter Spaces are collaborating again. “#HistorySpacePH” (usually hosted by Twitter users @indiohistorian, @juansinag, and @akosibluethree) and “#CineSpaces” (usually hosted by Twitter users @leanderings, @paulocetamol, @heyrow, and @billiejims) are holding a Twitter Space on Martial Law, particularly on “how cinema has been shaped by Martial Law and how film as a medium has also redefined our collective memory of this period.”
Two things that defined cinema of that era were censorship and bomba films. The media was heavily censored during that time. Aside from many media owners being arrested, the then-Board of Censorship was tasked in Marcos’ Letter of Instruction No. 13 to “uphold morality in the youth.” They used this to review and control the messages made by mass media, including films.
This is the two Spaces’ second collab, with the first one held Feb. 10 on period TV and films. It’s in the same vein of that, just purely focusing on a singular specific period.
“This time around, on the 19th, we will discuss how films during Martial Law reshaped Philippine cinema, and how films of recent years also shape our collective & fragmented memory of the ML years. We will discuss even those that do not fall under the history category. “Temptation Island,” for example, and “Scorpio Nights,” “Panday,” “Darna,” and “Bukas Luluhod ang mga Tala” (to name a few),” Kristoffer Pasion, who goes by @indohistorian, says to Preen.ph.
“HistorySpacePH began last March, and we have been doing this for our Twitter audience every Saturday night. Cinespaces also began that way, but theirs is scheduled every Wednesday night,” says Pasion, adding that we can expect another collab between the two. “We will have our last collab in April on biopics.”
I don’t know about you, but there are worse ways to spend your Saturday night than getting some learning in on a pretty important topic.
Photo by Charles Deluvio on Unsplash
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