Alastair Cole - International Translation Day 2017 (Colours of the Alphabet Film)

Colours of the Alphabet Film Website: http://coloursofthealphabet.com
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Hi, my name is Alastair Cole.

I'm a documentary filmmaker
based here in Scotland.

It's a pleasure to be here today

to celebrate
International Translation Day 2017,

and to talk to you about Amara as well,

which is, of course, a wonderful platform
for subtitling and translation.

As part of my role as a filmmaker,

subtitling and translation
is such a pivotal part to what I do.

Specially as I make films,
and at the moment

I'm making a film about languages,
about the subject of language,

including a recent project,
a feature documentary project

called, "The Colours of the Alphabet",

which I'm going to talk
a little bit about now,

because subtitling and translation
have been so pivotal and so fundamental

to how this film is made.

Those in it, those with me in it,
without them,

I wouldn't have been able
to made the film.

The film is a feature documentary,

it released last year
at the Glasglow Festival,

and it's been turned around
festivals and cinemas

around the UK, in Europe and Africa,
since then.

It's the story of three children
in a village in Zambia,

in a village called Lwimba.

It's a story of language and politics
in education, if you want, and childhood.

It follows the children for 12 months
at their first year of school.

And there's a school in the community,

where the community speaks
one language, called Soli,

the region and the teacher speak
another language, called Nyanja,

and they all must learn English,

because English is the only
official language of Zambia,

despite there being
72 different languages,

and only less than 2% of the population
speak English at home.

So, of course, it's a film about
this political dynamic,

but at the same time, it's a film
about childhood, and it's funny,

and it'a film that, hopefully,
we can all relate to at times,

and it reminds us of those days
at schools and their difficulties,

but of course,

for someone that is going to school
in a different language completely,

these difficulties are really highlighted
and exasperated, if you want.

But within the filmmaking process,
subtitling and translation is fundamental.

We used multicolored subtitles in the film

to represent the changes in the languages
that are going on in the classroom

and somewhere like Zambia.

This multilingualism is incredible,
it's very impressive, but of course,

conveying it to a non-indigenous
African language speaking audience

is often difficult,
and it's often not taken as a priority.

But for us it was a priority,

so we used a creative approach to subtitling,
if you want, in the film,

that you can see in the teaser
at the end of this video.

Soli, one of the languages, is orange,
has orange subtitling,

Nyanja has green subtitling,
Bemba has ping subtitling,

and English has white subtitling.

And this technique has fostered
more conversation, and hopefully,

a greater understanding
about this multilingualism that exists,

this beautiful multilingualism that exists
and the complexities and the skills,

which so many people across the continent
embrace this.

And I suppose,
within the documentary more broadly,

subtitling and translation is so important
and my team --

and my team for this film
is what I talk about.

My team of subtitlers and translators
in Zambia, [names]

[names]
were so important

and without them
I wouldn't be able to make the film.

And also my team in the UK [names]

and those screen languages,

who helped to bring the film
to international audiences,

and creating foreign languages
for the film.

But more generally,
in documentary filmmaking

having translation, and translators
that work seriously to approach it,

to understand the importance
of representing someone,

and that language can be misconstrued

and [ ] stood a translation
isn't taken seriously is so important.

And I think documentary filmmaking
provides the case sometimes,

because people and the film
that an audience can see and hear

are real people before and after the film,

so their accurate representation
is so important,

and their understanding of them
as people is so important.

I think translation and subtitling
has done a wonderful job

to help audiences around the world
experience cultures and languages,

but also, at the same time,

understand people
in the best way possible.

I also want to mention a new project
that I'm working on

around "The Colours of the Alphabet",

but the release
of "The Colours of the Alphabet"

early next year across Africa,

where it'll be forecast
into 49 different countries with