History of The Golden Ages of Cebuano Cinema
Dear Cebuano Readers:
If you want a good Cebuano book today, read Lilas: An Illustrated History of The Golden Age of Cinema and tell us about it. Its book launching will be August 20, 2016, 3:30pm at Ayala Activity Center, where you can get your copy signed by the authors.
I haven't read the book yet but I have the guts to say it's good solely for the fact that it attempts to dig into the past, get the forgotten fragments of this area of history, and look into another dimension of our culture that we can get Life Hacks from so we can solve today's Cebu problems, such as The Heavy Traffic in Cebu.
Imagine. If we have data on what Cebu was like during 1970s by looking at objective truth thru the lens of cinema, then maybe we can learn how to solve Mandaue Traffic, how to replace people's addiction to marijuana with non-addiction and how to detach everyone from suffering by harnessing into the Power of Now, so we don't harm people that much?
The other week I watched Cinemalaya's Pamilya Ordinaryo, and it's a visual evidence of some sort to how Filipinos under poverty still live a life worthy of respect. The people in the movies are actors, and this reminds me of how the street children we see are probably actors, too, and how they can be all part of a syndicate trying to fool us. And some are real street children, too, but how do we know what's true anymore if the media cannot be fully trusted.
I tried reading Albert Camus to find answers for this. The answer I got is: everything is absurd, and your life is important even if everything is meaningless. That said, this Lilas book may have more answers to this problem of truth and history being just a construction of schools and people who make money out of the gullible. And here's more questions I urge the readers to ask the authors:
- How can this book help us cope with the Modern Day Problem of Too Much Information? We know we have to dig into the past, but sometimes the past is actually what's hurting us.
- Nicholson Taleb said that Too Much Information is noise and can harm us. Will the Reading of This Book contribute to the problem of too much noise? And how can this History of Cebuano Cinema be of relevance to Cebuanos who are happy solely because they forget the past?
- The problem usually with books that are published in collaboration with schools is that the students can be required to purchase them or else, they get demerits. Can the authors help ensure that the professors using this book for students don't become charlatans and make money off the students?
To buy the book, Call Tina at USC Press (2300 100 loc. 290) or their publishing house at Tel. 420 2383. There's Book Launch, Art Exhibit and a Book Launching on August 20, 2016 at Ayala Activity Center, 3:30pm. See you there.
Yours,
Bisaya Short Films
