Italian Documentary Film About Translation
Posted by Fabio M. Said on Aug 29, 2011
Category: English, Featured Articles, translation|tradução, videos|vídeos • 2 comments
Category: English, Featured Articles, translation|tradução, videos|vídeos • 2 comments
Last week a fellow translator recommended an excellent Italian documentary film about translation, and I want to recommend it here as well. The film is around 50 minutes long, and it features testimonies of several Italian professional translators talking about their craft. The film draws interesting parallels between the work of a translator and the work of a baker and a musician. If you have 50 minutes of free time in this crazy, hasty world of our profession, do watch it. You will frown, laugh and relate to the translators’ stories. See below some information on the film, followed by the film itself. Enjoy!
Title: ‘Tradurre’ (Translating)
Genre: Documentary
Language: Italian with English subtitles
Produced in: 2008
Country: Italy
Director: Pier Paolo Giarolo
Producer: Outroad Di Pier Paolo Giarolo
Synopsis: ‘Translating’ tells about the journey of words from a language to another. Translators are used to face words, to follow their traces and force them into new spaces. Translators have to master not only a language but also what’s behind it: an entire culture and an idea of the world; that’s why we have asked ten translators to come with us in this journey through words and languages and take us to discover these worlds. Every language is a sound and the translator is a sort of musician. We find a musical instrument beside every language: conservatory students try to perform the same sheet of music translating the same melody into their own instrument. Language is also a mixture and the translator is a baker who prepares the bread everyday. In every country we can find different shapes of bread, made by the same ingredients. Language, like bread, is an alchemy we put on the table and eat everyday. To make this documentary, I put translators together with musicians and bakers. Each of them tells about an aspect of translating. The translator at his desk explains its deep sense, the musician with his own instrument makes us listen to the sound, the night baker reveals his mixture.
To watch this with subtitles, please visit http://www.cultureunplugged.com/play/5510/tradurre!
If you ask me, this film should be included as a topic for discussion in every serious translation program!
