Underground Film Translations in 1980s Romania: A Gateway to Freedom

Abstract The context of the communist regime in the late 1980s Romania was definitely a most peculiar one. During this period of time, translations from other languages were scarce and only the ones which were in accordance with the communist ideology were allowed. It was a time when people had neither many rights nor did they have many choices to make. In the latter part of the 1980s more and more foreign films were smuggled into the country and most of them were obviously American. Such films revealed a new and different world for those who watched them. Consequently, these films needed to be translated and the most well-known voice to have done it was Irina Margareta Nistor's. Her task was both interesting and demanding but also dangerous at the same time given the political context. This essay investigates the manner in which underground film “dubbing” The translation technique used, in reality a combination between the techniques of voice-over and simultaneous interpretation, was mistakenly named ‘dubbing.’ was done and describes the particularities of the clandestine film “dubbing” by discussing how it was performed and by analysing the translations qualitatively.