ONLINE Expand your knowledge of language and culture through films and subtitling
How to expand your knowledge of language and culture by watching (subtitled) films? What exactly is involved in the art of subtitling films? How much of the original language and culture really comes across in subtitled films? And what are the effects of subtitles on our approach, interpretation, reception and appreciation of films and cinema?
Professional subtitler Peter Bosma, MA talks with Dr. Marie-Aude Baronian about choosing the right words and finding the right nuances when subtitling foreign films. Without providing a definitive answer to the question of whether film is "translatable" at all, they examine what is important in translating film and where translating words becomes translating culture. Together they investigate how subtitles contribute to a better understanding of foreign languages and cultures, or how they hinder them.
There is the opportunity to ask questions after the discussion.
With fragments from the films Calendar (1993) by Canadian-Armenian filmmaker Atom Egoyan and BlacKkKlansman (2018) by American filmmaker Spike Lee, and a video message by Michael Haneke. Recording images from these film clips is not allowed.
Marie-Aude Baronian is an Associate Professor of Film and Visual Culture at the University of Amsterdam. Her most recent monographic book is Screening Memory: The Prosthetic Images of Atom Egoyan (Royal Academy Belgium, 2017).
Peter Bosma studied English Language and Literature in Groningen and has been working as a subtitler for television and cinema since 1995. He is also a freelance editor and a board member of the Subtitles Department of the Dutch “Auteursbond”.
View the program via this LINK.
This event is co-organized and funded by EUNIC and the Directorate-General for Translation of the European Commission.