Ayala Foundation, Inc. – Filipinas Heritage Library, and 
U.S. Embassy in the Philippines
present   

POPCORN AT THE BARRACKS
With NICK DEOCAMPO

A free webinar part of Liberation: War & Hope, a series of events in commemoration of the 75th anniversary of the end of WWII.

March 5, 2022 (Saturday)
10AM – 12 NN (PH time*)
Online: Zoom and Facebook Live 
FREE Webinar with Certificate
*Convert to your time zone

Learn about national cinema after the war in a new talk by Filipinas Heritage Library 

In the latest installment of “Liberation Talks,” webinars by Filipinas Heritage Library (FHL), independent filmmaker and UP professor Nick Deocampo will discuss the legacies left behind by World War II on Philippine cinema using three perspectives: historiographic, semiotic, and  nationalist. The talk is titled Popcorn at the Barracks. It will be on March 5, 2022, Saturday, from 10 a.m. to 12 nn., and will be broadcasted via Zoom and Facebook Live.

Deocampo will reconstruct movie spectatorship and film production during and after the war. This history will shed light on how nationalist filmmakers use Hollywoord melodrama to revisit wartime and post-war Filipino-American relations. Reflecting on cold war developments, the speaker will examine movies that deal with the theme of the Second World War, particularly Manuel Silos’ Victory Joe and Lino Brocka’s “Hellow, Soldier” from Tatlo, Dalawa, Isa.   

The webinar will cover topics related to the treatment of American films during the three-year occupation of the Philippines by the Japanese military as well as the triumphant return of Hollywood on local screens. The semiotic approach will use the science to provide a tool to give meaning using the signs in the films—the images, sounds, and gestures. How do films—minus the dialogue—speak? And finally, the talk will seek to answer how nationalism forms a framework that made cinema evolve into national culture.  

“Liberation Talks” is part of the series of events under the Liberation: War & Hope banner program, commemorating the 75th anniversary of the end of World War II. It is organized by Ayala Foundation, Inc. (AFI) through FHL, in partnership with US Embassy in the Philippines. For “Popcorn at the Barracks,” Manila Bulletin is the official media partner.    

Filipinas Heritage Library and Ayala Museum are omnichannel institutions. Both strive to make Filipino history, art, and culture accessible 24/7 to audiences with onsite, offsite, and online collections and programs. To learn more, visit filipinaslibrary.org.ph and ayalamuseum.org.

Speaker: Nick Deocampo

Nick Deocampo is a filmmaker, film historian, and author. He presently teaches at the U.P. Film Institute in the University of the Philippines – Diliman. He took up his Master of Arts degree in Cinema Studies at New York University as a Fulbright-Hays scholar and he received his Certificate in Film as a French Government scholar in Paris, France. His films have been screened nationally and internationally, the latest being the retrospective given to him by the Cinematheque Francaise to celebrate his 40th anniversary as a documentary filmmaker.

UPDATE: The webinar recording may now be viewed on our YouTube channel: