BACOLOD, PHILIPPINES — While creating the subtitles of a film, a young Filipina translator and a middle-aged Japanese director test the limits of language and understanding. This is the premise of Gitling, a full-length feature that recently secured the prestigious Best Screenplay award at Cinemalaya 2023.
Jopy Arnaldo, Creative Director at MullenLowe Treyna, marked his directorial debut with the film. Gitling tells the story of Jamie, who has recently called off her engagement, and Makoto, who sought refuge in the Philippines following a distressing betrayal by his spouse two years earlier. Their paths cross in Bacolod where they work together and create Ilonggo subtitles for Makoto’s film. Together, as they go through the filmmaking process, they find solace in a friendship they never knew they needed.
Amid the captivating narrative crafted by Jopy, Carlos Sison, a Bacolodnon himself, found himself part of Gitling. Having secured a minor role in the film, Carlos offers a unique perspective that bridges the gap between actor and audience. In this Letterboxd review he shared with adobo Magazine, he intricately weaves his personal experiences and insights into the broader cinematic narrative, contributing a distinctive layer of understanding to the film’s essence.
Read his review here:
I love movies. I love cities. I particularly like movies involving cities. I sometimes jot down my thoughts about them on the internet. But this time, it’s my city. Crap.
Initially, I had the extremely pretentious idea of not Letterboxd ranking any of the films I am a part of in any way. But after seeing this film, I couldn’t help but do so anyway. Here goes my way too-long review of Jopy Arnaldo’s Gitling.
My expectations for this were tempered at first. When I knew they were shooting pretty much all of it in my hometown, Bacolod, I was afraid it would end up like the last Negros-based Cinemalaya film, Namets, or something close to that. I was also weary of Filipino two-hander films just because of how oversaturated the 2010s were with them.
After getting past the surreal feeling of hearing my own voice in the opening scene of a movie, my worries about Gitling quickly evaporated.
To get it out of the way, I am so lucky to have had Gabby Padilla and Ken Yamamura as my first-ever castmates in a feature film. I could go on about their nuanced, naturalistic performances, or how they were a perfect fit for their roles and for each other in the context of the film, but theirs are performances that are better seen than talked about really. What I will say is that Gabby and Ken are two of the most interesting, grounded, and kind actors I’ve met in my acting journey so far. In a two-hander like this, where minor characters are spelled with a capital M, these two always felt like friends and good normal people on and off set. Cheers guys.
Now…
Director/writer Jopy Arnaldo, who is a first-time feature film director, alongside the magical cinematography of Mycko David, a household name by this point, painted Bacolod in a light (figuratively and literally) that I’ve grown to scarcely see it in the more and more I grow frustrated with living there. My love-hate relationship with Bacolod City has slowly turned towards the latter after being thrust back after the pandemic to a place that feels stuck in time and in its old, worn ways; a city of 600,000 still masquerading as a small town. But as I’ve learned with German director Wim Wender’s picture of America in his masterpiece Paris, Texas, sometimes it takes an outsider to truly see a place for what it is or for what it could be. Jopy, with roots in Bacolod but raised in Manila, Mycko, and producer KC Contrevida, all from Manila, created a picture of the city, and its neighboring locations, that wasn’t just visually breathtaking. It was somehow respectful, hopeful, and inspiring.
Jopy’s writing, instead of hitting me like a ton of bricks, felt like a ton of feathers falling over my head. Always gentle and soft, but weighty all the same. As previously written in other reviews, the interplay between languages was smooth and balanced, and the writing was self-aware enough to make little jabs at the genre, the film’s influences, and the film itself.
Growing up I wasn’t really exposed to my language being used in film, or any form of art really, it was always awkward to write and even hear Ilonggo (okay, Hiligaynon) in anything other than conversationally. All of sudden, the language felt totally natural on-screen whenever Gabby, who is from Iloilo, where they arguably speak better Hiligaynon, or any of the local cast would speak it. What an immersive experience to be able to hear and really understand the language, and only feel good and proud about it. Nothing else.
I’ll be leaving Bacolod as I move abroad for a year and a half for school. This movie gave me the gift of having something to look forward to and be hopeful for when I return—a gift I probably had all along. I can’t express how important that is to me at this point in my life.
In the world of Gitling, Bacolod felt special. It felt like a real place with real places to be. It felt like home.
Thank you Gitling and the people behind it, for allowing me to play a small, small part in this, but more importantly, for, even if maybe just for a day or a week, making me love Bacolod City once more.
