ABS-CBN Film Archives


The ABS-CBN Film Archives, also called ABS-CBN Archives, is a state-of-the-art film archive in the Philippines located at the basement of ELJ Communications Center in Eugenio Lopez Drive, Diliman, Quezon City. It is a member of the Southeast Asia-Pacific Audio-Visual Archive Association, as well as the Society of Filipino Archivists for Film or Sofia. At present, ABS-CBN Film Archives holds about 2,400 Filipino films from Star Cinema, LVN Pictures, Regal Films, VIVA Films, Seiko Films, Cinema Artists, Sampaguita Pictures, OctoArts Films, Imus Productions, RVQ Productions, Cine Suerte, NV Productions along with the cinema libraries of Dolphy, Nora Aunor, Fernando Poe Jr., Rudy Fernandez, Ramon Revilla, and Armida Siguion-Reyna. ABS-CBN Film Archives holds the largest film collection in the country. It is currently headed by Leo Katigbak.

Facility

The 500 square meter facility of ABS-CBN Film Archives is covered with insulated walls. It has two film vaults: the medium-term vault and the long-term vault. The medium term vault holds betacam tapes, U-matic, 16mm negatives and prints, and some 35mm negatives and prints while the long-term vault holds the 35mm negatives and master prints. The facility is protected by a special fire suppression system. Acclimatization rooms are located between the vaults and the exit. Before a film could be taken out from the vault, it has to stay in the first acclimatization room for 24 hours and in the second acclimatization room for another 24 hours to prevent damage caused by condensation due to rapid temperature change. The temperature in the long-term vault is maintained between 8 and 10 °C with 31 to 35 percent relative humidity while in the medium-term vault, the temperature is maintained between 15 and 20 °C with 35 to 50 percent relative humidity. The air-conditioning system of the facility operates 24 hours a day. The facility is accessible to visitors for academic and research purposes.

Digital film restoration

ABS-CBN Film Restoration Project is a digital film restoration and remastering project of ABS-CBN Film Archives in partnership with Central Digital Lab. The goal of the project is to digitally restore and remaster select films in the archives of ABS-CBN. As of 2015, the project has restored and remastered over 100 films. Restoration cost ranges anywhere between two hundred thousand pesos and ten million pesos per film.