Cinemalaya short film ‘Please Keep This Copy’ experiments with memory by recalling the all boys Catholic high school experience using only old documents
Cinemalaya short film ‘Please Keep This Copy’ experiments with memory by recalling the all boys Catholic high school experience using only old documents
SINEGANG.ph published this press release shared by Please Keep This Copy. No staff writer participated in writing this article.
Student filmmaker “Miko” Miguel Lorenzo Peralta makes his Cinemalaya debut with his experimental documentary short film “Please Keep This Copy,” which presents his personal experience growing up as a part of the last batch of all-boys students from an elite private Catholic high school during the Duterte administration. However, rather than showing any video footage, the film instead presents the story only through the use of scanned documents, old doodles on ripped pieces of pad paper, and other memorabilia from high school, and pairing them with archival audio recordings taken during that time.
“I’m a very sentimental person, which is why I kept all those documents and pieces of paper after all these years.” Peralta said. “When I see those documents, it feels as though the pages themselves are speaking, bringing those memories back to life.”
Starting out as a requirement for an experimental film class in the University of the Philippines Film Institute (UPFI) under Prof. Sari Dalena, “Please Keep This Copy” has gone through the film festival circuit, premiering first at Far Eastern University (FEU)’s Sinepiyu Film Festival, where it won the honorable mention award under the experimental category, and later winning the Special Jury Prize (Experimental) in the Cinemapua Student Short Film Festival. Outside student festivals, “Please Keep This Copy” has been screened in Pelikultura: The Calabarzon Film Festival, as well as many local community screenings organized by different groups and organizations such as the Experimental Society of the Philippines (ESP), Film Aficionados Circle (FILAC), Timog Pelikula, and Kinoise.PH. The film has also been screened internationally, being exhibited at the Seashorts Film Festival in Malaysia, Jogja-NETPAC Asian Film Festival in Indonesia, and the Busan International Video Art Festival in Korea.
“Making this film was a lot about me processing my memories of feeling repressed in such a controlling institution,” Peralta said. “Partially, yes, it is a celebration of teenage nostalgia, delinquency, ‘high school kalokohan’, and even queerness, but it is also a critical reflection of revisiting my memories within a socio-historical context. The personal is political, and what happens inside the classroom is a reflection of what’s happening outside the country.”
Set during the Duterte administration when vulgar language was prevalent in political discourse, the number of extrajudicial killings were rising, and a dictator was given a hero’s burial, “Please Keep This Copy” explores how the youth can be influenced by the political landscape and institutions they grow up in, but also how they respond to it and fight back.
“I firmly believe in the idea that to remember is to resist,” he said. “We must never forget the atrocities committed during this time, and to remember that we must keep that same youthful fighting spirit alive.”
“Please Keep This Copy” will be shown at Cinemalaya 2025 from October 4-11, 2025, at Shangri-La Plaza, Gateway Cineplex, UP Town Center, Circuit Makati, Market! Market!, and Ayala Malls Manila Bay.
