now showing... doubled with

Then, I grew up with movie houses in the city that would show two movies for a price of one. When we would go to Cebu, watching a movie was never a problem. The trick then was to help prepare for my grandfather's lunch when we would have our summer vacations in the queen city of the south and gleefully go the cinema and go straight ahead to the projector room and do the routine "mano" to that very tall guy (that's were I got the genes for the height, I suppose) working steadily with the rolls of film. Our lolo will then tell us to go and take our seats inside the movie house. I guess he wouldn't want us to see what happens inside the projector room. But I would insist to stay and wait until they change the rolls of film in between films (yup, they do. Its too fast you don't see them change from one roll to another) and they would have to rewind it by hand using a machine like that which pricked sleeping beauty (again, yup they dont have those rewinders we had for beta max or vhs players) and give it to that young guy with a bike so that he would hand it over to another movie house. When we've gotten bored of having to watch the movie twice or more, we then head back to bade goodbye to lolo and head straight back home. I think working then as a projectionist was something people looked forward to. My nanay would proudly say that my grandfather was able to learn then how to make television sets (That must have been an accomplishment for a time when the cinema was the norm and television was just starting) after a training from American teachers. Those are fond memories I could still remember of my grandfather.

That must have been one reason why I have also loved the cinema.

I share this passion with my students and infuse it even with my helping them learn in my classes. For my second year class, I showed to them "Not One Less".


This is a story of a girl assigned to substitute for a teacher who was leaving the school. Since the number of students was getting smaller and smaller, she was told that she would get her salary if all students will be there when the teacher comes back. However , one boy goes to the city to work and she had to find her way to the city to find the lost boy. I find the movie very touching and would always start with an introduction by saying, "When you see this film, you'll never waste a single chalk again."


For the fourth year students, I showed them "Crash". Students would scratch their heads and wonder why this film isn't as popular as other Oscar-awarded movies around. Of course they would easily identify that Luda Chris is in this film. Most of them find this and the child scenes very moving.