This work has not been peer reviewed by the University of the Philippines Rainbow Research Hub or its project members. The views expressed are solely those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect those of the Hub or its project members.
2026 Philippine Queer Studies Conference
POSTER PRESENTATION
Early Philippine cinema flyers as queer archives
Melanio L. Martinez Jr.
This rare and underpublicized collection of 195 printed cinema flyers from Malolos, Bulacan, published between 1911 and 1913, documents the early circulation of international films in the Philippines during the American colonial period. Featuring multilingual translations in Tagalog, Spanish, and English, the flyers advertised productions from France, Italy, Germany, the United States, and the United Kingdom. The collection shows how colonial Philippine cinemas became vital nodes in the global circulation of film while also nurturing the foundations of a national cinematic identity. These ephemera, often dismissed as disposable, stand as archives that open new genealogies of desire, spectatorship, and cultural memory through queer readings. Comedy emerges as the richest site of queer possibility, marked by tropes of vanity, disguise, and parody central to camp aesthetics and the destabilization of gender norms. Melodramas offered another space for identification, where betrayal, repression, and longing echoed experiences of exclusion and marginality. War films and serialized dramas, with their emphasis on camaraderie and secrecy, often functioned as allegories of male intimacy and hidden lives. Religious spectacles and nationalist productions, meanwhile, layered imported tropes with local traditions of performance—stage revues, operatic excess, and star-centered fandoms that remain central to queer attachments today. Ultimately, this study cites the flyers as evidence of both global cinematic exchange and local cultural practice. More than historical curiosities, they stand as archives of queer possibility in the colonial Philippines.