We're two weeks away from the opening of this year's Cinemalaya and what you just saw is one of the entries in the full-length category. "Gitling" tells the story of a young interpreter hired to work with a Japanese director to create Ilonggo subtitles for his Japanese film. How will language play a role in their budding friendship?
Well, joining us now in the studio are Director Jopy Arnaldo and lead actress Gabby Padilla.
Visit our website for more #NewsYouCanTrust: https://www.cnnphilippines.com/
00:20 And we're two weeks away from the opening of this year's Cinemalaya, and what you just saw is one of the entries in the full-length category, "Gitling,"
00:27 and this tells the story of a young interpreter hired to work with a Japanese director to create Ilongo subtitles for his Japanese film.
00:35 Now, how will language play a role in their budding friendship, relationship?
00:39 Joining us now in the studio to tell us more about this is the director, Jopi Arnaldo, and the lead actress, Gabby Padilla.
00:46 Good morning to you both. Congratulations.
00:48 Thank you. Good morning.
00:49 First, first?
00:50 First film for me, yes.
00:52 First film for you for Cinemalaya?
00:54 Ever.
00:55 Ever?
00:56 Ever. First film for you ever, and then Cinemalaya. How incredible is that?
01:00 I still don't understand how it's happening, but I'm happy.
01:03 Yes, I mean, normally you go through shorts, or you do so many, you know, but they accepted it right away.
01:09 Some shorts, but...
01:11 Yes, so you did shorts and videos, music videos and whatnot.
01:14 Small, small stuff.
01:15 Okay, so tell me a little bit about "Gitling." I asked you before we went on camp, "Why is the title 'Gitling'?"
01:21 So, "Gitling"
01:22 What does it mean?
01:23 Hyphen.
01:24 "Gitling" is Filipino for hyphen, and so yeah, as mentioned a while ago, it's about a Filipino interpreter, played by Gabby.
01:30 Okay, Gabby.
01:31 And a Japanese director, and their connection as they make Hiligaynon subtitles around Bacolod.
01:37 And it's really just a story about fleeting connections, fleeting relationships between people,
01:45 how just because some things don't last forever doesn't mean they're not important,
01:50 or you don't carry them with you till the rest of your life. And that's kind of what we wanted to focus on with this particular film.
01:56 Yeah, and it's also quite interesting because a lot of the films featured here in the Cinemalaya are all fresh, new, different ideas.
02:06 What stemmed this new type of films to sprout out here in Cinemalaya? Was it because of the film lab, or what happened here, Derek?
02:15 Or in general?
02:16 Yes, just in general.
02:18 As far as I know, a lot of new filmmakers applied for this particular Cinemalaya, a lot of first-time filmmakers.
02:24 A friend of mine, one of the directors, Kevin Mayuga, we came up with our stories together, and now it's premiering in Cinemalaya.
02:31 Together, yeah.
02:32 Together. Randomly, we were bored during the pandemic, and I guess that may have played a role.
02:36 And the kind of stories that were submitted got accepted, and then we had the film lab,
02:41 and we spent five or six months of intensive digging into each other's films, learning, growing, writing, and rewriting.
02:48 That's kind of what pushed us to create this particular batch of films.
02:51 A wonderful platform for all of these new and upcoming directors, just to give it a fresh nudge, to move the landscape just a little bit.
03:00 Gabby, you're not new in this landscape, although new in Cinemalaya, you've done so many films.
03:05 Tell me a little bit about the role and the importance of you having come from Iloilo.
03:12 So I play Jamie. She is the interpreter for the subtitles and also Makoto's translator.
03:19 And basically, through this relationship that they form and through getting to know each other,
03:25 they kind of help each other unpack their baggage and kind of learn to articulate the things that they have left unsaid in their own personal lives.
03:35 I think that's very special for me, too. The whole experience is very special because I was born and raised in Iloilo.
03:41 So this film feels like a love letter to Bacolod and the food and the culture.
03:48 So it was really nice to kind of play with the language and also just with the local backdrop of Ilongo culture.
03:59 But this film was made for her.
04:01 Yeah, literally. I had Gabby in mind.
04:05 You had Gabby in mind!
04:07 Yeah, we had worked with each other before during the pandemic for a series.
04:11 An online series. We were shot literally over Zoom.
04:14 Yeah, we shot it on Zoom. And then a few months later, he reached out and he was like,
04:19 "Oh, I'm thinking of joining Cinemalaya. I have this film in mind. If you'd be game."
04:24 I was like, "Yeah, here we are."
04:26 How did you think about doing this whole interpreter? And how did you find the Japanese character for this film?
04:34 The origin of the story came from a Vanity Fair article about, if you remember, Bonjong Ho's Parasite award season.
04:43 He always had an interpreter beside him.
04:45 And she wrote an article about the difference between interpreting and translating.
04:49 And I found it fascinating.
04:51 And my friends and I were like, "Let's make stories for whatever."
04:54 So I found an article, made a story out of that, and that's kind of where it spun out into this whole thing.
05:00 And as for how we found Ken, Instagram.
05:04 Instagram is great! It's for everything!
05:06 A friend of our producer recommended him and we just reached out.
05:10 And for some reason, he said yes. Thankfully.
05:12 And is it a drama-d? Is it drama but with comedy?
05:17 I mean, life is a drama-d.
05:20 Drama with a capital D.
05:26 But just a bit of levity, a bit of laughter here and there.
05:29 But mostly, it's a dramatic film.
05:32 But that's not depressing.
05:34 It still feels good.
05:37 Alright, we'll do invite our viewers to come out and watch.
05:40 Your film, Gitling. Gab?
05:43 Hello, everyone!
05:46 Hi, everyone! I'm Gabby Padilla.
05:49 And we're so, so, so happy to be here.
05:52 And we'd like to invite you to see Gitling.
05:55 It's part of this year's Cinemalaya Film Festival.
05:57 Directed by?
05:59 Me, for some reason. But yeah.
06:01 So, please do watch.
06:03 It's a watching festival. It's the first week of August.
06:06 Our premiere is on August 7, 6.15pm PICC.
06:10 And we'll release the rest of the schedule.
06:12 But please, please do watch, if ever.
06:14 It's gonna be a great lineup of films featuring in this year's Cinemalaya.
06:19 Thank you once again, Direk and Gabby, for joining us this morning here in New Day.
