As Indonesian film gets more attention from movie buffs worldwide, so does the need for quality subtitling.

The term quality here implies that the subtitle not only translates what is spoken in an accurate and easy-to-read way, but that it also aptly conveys the emotions of the characters and the nuances of the whole movie.

That requires skill and extensive experience from the subtitler, but also enough time to complete the task.

“In our case, subtitling is often the last thing [on people’s] mind,” said Rizal Iwan, a subtitler whose latest works include Marlina the Murderer in Four Acts, which was premiered at the Cannes Film Festival and screened in the United States and Canada last year.

Rizal said that, even though the goal of subtitling was to remain invisible to the viewer so as not to distract from the experience of the move, the job should not be underestimated.

“It’s important for the filmmaker to sit together with the subtitler and watch how the work looks on screen or at least make time to review and communicate with the subtitler,” said Rizal, who is also a writer and actor.

“A single, overlooked slip-up in the subtitle may see a film dropped by a festival committee. One cannot put the blame on the subtitler alone, because it’s supposed to be teamwork.”

He was speaking at a discussion called Subtitle, Distribution, Viewers: Non-Monotonic Relations as part of the Viddsee Juree Awards Indonesia 2019 at Dutch cultural center Erasmus Huis in South Jakarta on Saturday.

Ten short films, feature, documentary and animation, were screened for the public and a panel of international judges at the event that ended on Sunday.

Other speakers at the discussion were Nikki Loke, content lead of Viddsee, and Candra Aditya, a filmmaker whose work #Blessed was included in the competition.

“I wrote the subtitle myself, because I don’t have the budget to hire professionals,” said Candra. “The biggest challenge for me is to translate cultural references, such as rituals and slang. I ended up providing descriptions in brackets.”

A challenge of a different sort was experienced by Wini Angraeni, a producer with production house Sedap Films. For the past two years, her team produced short films about deaf people and had to provide Indonesian subtitles to net more viewers.

“Deaf people communicate in basic words and don’t use the formal sentence structure of Indonesian. So in our films, we inserted an animation on sign language at the beginning of the film and translated it to provide knowledge for the general audience.

“We also described in detail every sound occurring in the film,” she said.

Despite rising demand for quality subtitling in Indonesia, the industry has yet to come up with standard fees for the job. Some professionals may charge the producer for each minute of the film, while others, like Rizal, have their own rates for feature films or documentaries.

Movie aficionados often volunteer to make subtitles for short films on digital platforms. Subber Community Viddsee, for example, actively translated both Indonesian and foreign films believed to attract a large audience.

“We do it for free,” said Marsha Aulia of the community, to applause from the discussion participants.

The absence of a formal organization, however, was not an obstacle for subtitlers to get a job, Rizal explained. He was often hired by word of mouth, contacted by production houses upon the recommendation of another production house.

“I have never taken any translation proficiency tests […] because it hasn’t yet become a requirement. My foremost credential is the trust between me and the filmmakers.”

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