Found in Translation: Film Festivals, Documentary and the Preservation of Linguistic Diversity

Written by Antía López Gómez, Aida Vallejo, Mª Soliña Barreiro and Amanda Paz Alencar, this chapter argues that research about minority-language films can be highly enriched if focused on the documentary genre. In opposition to the artificial imposition of dubbing practices, documentary films favour subtitling practices, providing the means for experiencing cultural diversity in multilingual contexts in a natural way, especially in the festival context, where subtitling is the norm.

Based on the R+D Project «Towards the European Digital Space. The Role of Small Cinemas in Original Version» (MINECO CSO2012-35784), a study of the institutional policies carried out by the European Union to foster and preserve linguistic diversity in the audio-visual realm , this chapter looks at film festivals that specialize in documentary film or minority languages, in order to interrogate their role in the visibility and circulation of cinemas featuring minority languages.