Howie Severino discovers PHL's forgotten cinemas on 'I-Witness'

“PALASYO NG PELIKULA”
Dokumentaryo ni Howie Severino
June 10, 2013
 
They were the palaces in the golden age of cinema, the grand venues of Philippine pop culture. 
 
Now the nation's stand-alone movie theaters are nearly forgotten, except for the notorious Family Theater in Pampanga immortalized in the Brillante Mendoza film, “Serbis,” as a squalid sex den. 
 
In Quiapo, Howie Severino and his docu team explore one of these dilapidated remnants of cinema's glory days, a theater that hosted glamorous premiere nights of the biggest box office hits. They find an old janitor who lives there immersed in its glorious history and sordid present. 
 
The theater in Quiapo today is neither cinematique nor sex den, but a busy hive of diversions that have helped make the classic way of watching movies a thing of the past. 
 
Join Howie Severino as he discovers what’s left of these palaces of Phlippine cinema, this Monday in I-Witness.

Filipino version:

Noong panahon ng golden age of cinema, sila ang mga dating palasyo ng pelikulang Pilipino.  Dati, ito ang pinakamakinang na bahagi ng Manila na dinarayo ng mga pinakasikat na artista.
 
Ngayon, ang mga stand-alone na sinehan, tila bahagi nalang ng nakaraan at tila wala na sa kamalayan ng mga Pilipino.  Maliban nalang sa Family theater sa Pampanga na sumikat sa buong mundo dahil sa pelikulang “Serbis” ni Brillante Mendoza.  Kuwento ito ng isang pamilyang nagpapatakbo ng lumang sinehan na naging isang lugar para sa bentahan ng laman.