''Giliw Ko'' ( Filipino for "my love" or "my sweetheart") is a 1939 Filipino

musical Musical is the adjective of music. Musical may also refer to: * Musical theatre, a performance art that combines songs, spoken dialogue, acting and dance * Musical film Musical film is a film genre in which songs by the Character (arts), charac ...

romance film Romance films involve romantic love stories recorded in visual media for broadcast in theatres or on television that focus on passion (emotion), passion, emotion, and the affectionate romantic involvement of the main characters. Typically their ...

. The first production of

LVN Pictures LVN Pictures, Inc. was a Filipino film studio that was considered one of the biggest in the history of Philippine cinema and its foremost establishment in motion picture post-production until 2005. In its heyday of motion picture production, LV ...

, it established the production company's tradition of musical extravaganzas. Directed and written by Carlos Vander Tolosa, it stars Ely Ramos, Fernando Poe, Ely Ramos,

Mila del Sol Clarita Villarba Rivera, better known by her screen name Mila del Sol (12 May 1923 – 10 November 2020), was a Filipina actress, entrepreneur and philanthropist. Born in Tondo, Manila, she gained fame in her very first lead role in the 1939 fil ...

, and

Fleur de Lis The ''fleur-de-lis'', also spelled ''fleur-de-lys'' (plural ''fleurs-de-lis'' or ''fleurs-de-lys''), is a common heraldic charge in the ( stylized) shape of a lily (in French, and mean and respectively). Most notably, the ''fleur-de-lis ...

Plot

Guia (Mila del Sol) is a provincial girl who becomes infatuated with images of Hollywood and the attention lavished on her by Antonio (Ely Ramos), the son of the wealthy landlord. Antonio is also the bandleader of a radio orchestra who convinces Guia to come to Manila with him and sing American songs on the radio. In Manila, Guia eventually becomes disillusioned, defies Antonio by singing in Tagalog, and returns back to the province and into the arms of her childhood sweetheart, Jose (Fernando Poe Sr.).

Cast

* Ely Ramos as Antonio Lopez * Fernando Poe as Jose *

as Guia *

as Rosie * Ben Rubio as Mang Takio * Precioso Palma as Don Alvaro * Cecilia Joaquin as Mang Juan * Viva Ortega as Doña Lucia * Nieves Obieta as Atang * SSS Trio as themselves * Kiko & Conde

Production

Several scenes of the film were shot at the mansion of

Narcisa de Leon Narcisa may refer to: People with thec given name *Narcisa de Jesús (1832–1869), Roman Catholic saint from Nobol, Ecuador * Narcisa de León (1877–1966), Filipino film producer * Narcisa Freixas (1859–1926), Catalan sculptor, painter and co ...

, the producer and matriarch of

Release

The film was released on July 29, 1939 at the

Manila Metropolitan Theater The Manila Metropolitan Theater (), also known as the Metropolitan Theater, abbreviated as the MET, is a historic Philippine Art Deco building located in Plaza Lawton in Ermita, Manila. It is recognized as the forefront of the Art Deco archite ...

. President

Manuel L. Quezon Manuel Luis Quezon y Molina (, , , ; 19 August 1878 – 1 August 1944), also known by his initials MLQ, was a Filipino people, Filipino lawyer, statesman, soldier, and politician who was president of the Commonwealth of the Philippines from 1 ...

was in attendance.

Restoration

In 1998, for the Philippines's centennial, the Australian government, through its

National Film and Sound Archive The National Film and Sound Archive of Australia (NFSA), known as ScreenSound Australia from 1999 to 2004, is Australia's audiovisual archive, responsible for developing, preserving, maintaining, promoting, and providing access to a national c ...

, gifted the country with a restored copy of ''Giliw Ko''. In 2022,

ABS-CBN Film Restoration Project ABS-CBN Film Restoration Project, also known as Sagip Pelikula, was a digital film restoration project of ABS-CBN Corporation in partnership with Central Digital Lab. Launched in 2011, the project was headed by Leo Katigbak of ABS-CBN Film Arc ...

announced it was undergoing a new scan of the film print.

Restoration Notes for Giliw Ko

Giliw Ko is a 1939 musical drama that was scanned in

2K resolution 2K resolution is a generic term for display devices or content having a horizontal resolution of approximately 2,000 pixels. In the movie projection industry, Digital Cinema Initiatives Digital Cinema Initiatives, LLC (DCI) is a consortium ...

using the existing 16mm print from

. stored at the

ABS-CBN Film Archives The ABS-CBN Film Archives, also called ABS-CBN Archives, is a state-of-the-art Archive, film archive in the Philippines located at the basement of ELJ Communications Center on Eugenio Lopez Drive, Quezon City, Diliman, Quezon City. It is a memb ...

. The film elements were in bad shape, with a deep state of

vinegar syndrome Vinegar Syndrome is an American home video distribution company which specializes in "protecting and preserving genre films". The company was founded in 2012 in Bridgeport, Connecticut by Joe Rubin and Ryan Emerson, who created it to restore ...

, irreparable film tear, warps, and crystals. It took nearly 2 years to complete the scanning and enhancement combined because certain scenes had to be repeatedly rescanned frame by frame or at a very slow scan speed due to the image moving out of frame every time the irreparable film tears bump through the scanner’s sprockets. The enhancement of the picture took more than 500 hours to adjust the color and minimize impairments such as flicker, dirt, specks, shallow scratches, and watermarks; half of the total hours were used for the stabilization of the image due to the heavy shaking caused by the severe warps of the source material. Due to the musical nature of the film, it took close to 2 months to restore the audio and address the ticks and pops, audio drop outs, and “wow” problems; the wobbling music with the deep unintelligible audio track was the most challenging part in the audio restoration process, given the limited resources available from 16mm print and

Betacam Betacam is a family of half-inch professional videocassette products developed by Sony in 1982. In colloquial use, ''Betacam'' singly is often used to refer to a Betacam camcorder, a Betacam tape, a Betacam video recorder or the format itself. ...

tape. Another major challenge that was toughly addressed was the syncing of the audio to the enhanced picture due to the different frame rates of the available source materials. The scanning and enhancement of the picture were completed at the ABS-CBN Film Archives while the audio restoration was done at Narra by Wildsound Studios in 2023.

References

Bibliography

* * *

External links

*
Times Film Festival review and background
*{{IMDb title, id=0442245, title=Giliw Ko 1939 films Philippine black-and-white films 1930s romantic musical films Philippine romantic musical films Films produced by Narcisa de León 1930s rediscovered films