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Hi, my name is Alastair Cole.

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I'm a documentary filmmaker 
based here in Scotland.

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It's a pleasure to be here today

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to celebrate
International Translation Day 2017,

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and to talk to you about Amara as well,

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

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As part of my role as a filmmaker,

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

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Specially at the moment
that I'm making a film about languages,

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about the subject of language,

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including a recent project,
a feature documentary project

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called, "The Colours of the Alphabet",

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

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because translation and subtitling
have been so pivotal and so fundamental

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to help this film being made.

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

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

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The film is a feature documentary,

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it released last year
at the Glasglow Festival,

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and it's been turned around
festivals and cinemas

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

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

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in a village called Lwimba.

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

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

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And there's a school in the community,

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where the community speaks
one language called Soli,

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

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and they all must learn English,

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because English is the only 
official language of Zambia,

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despite being 72 languages,

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

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

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

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and it's funny, 
and it'a film that, hopefully,

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we can all relate to at times,

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

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but of course,

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

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

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But in the film-making process,
subtitling and translation is fundamental.

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We used multicolored subtitles in the film

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

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and somewhere like Zambia.

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

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conveying it to a non-indigenous
African language speaking audience

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

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But for us it was a priority, so we used,

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

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as you can see in the teaser it,
at the end of this video.

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

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Nyanja has green subtitling,
Bemba has ping subtitling,

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and English has white subtitling.

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And this technic has foster
more conversation

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and hopefully, a greater understanding
that this multilingualism that exists,

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this beautiful multilingualism that exists

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and the complexities and the skills,

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which so many people across the continent
embrace this.

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And I suppose, 
within the documentary more broadly,

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subtitling and translation is so important

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

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My team of subtitlers and translators
in Zambia, [3:04]