Making of documentary on #albsrb young women: translator’s take

Making of documentary on #albsrb young women: translator’s take

[Making of documentary on #albsrb young women]

I’m sitting down, I’m writing my soon-to-be last words for this movie we’re making – I’m translating it.
Albanian to Serbian, Serbian to Albanian, and then all of this to English… And I think I’m gonna explode, but then again, I’m so happy I’m doing it… It’s a rollercoaster of emotions...
And I feel so grateful for all of this ! For being a part of this !
For being there in Albania with you.

I love this picture even though Nada is missing, but she’s behind the camera. She’s thinking about the whole visual part of the movie, she’s thinking about the sound, the light, she’s thinking about these women.

But the whole movie is Minjas idea, she wanted to hear the stories of young and oddly successful young women from Albania and Serbia. She wanted to contribute to the society with this movie, but first of all, she wanted to know for herself. She wanted to learn about herself, while learning about them. And she wanted those women to tell another story. She wanted to give them voice. And she found Desarta, and she found me.

Desarta found all these amazing women from Albania, organized every single thing during our stay in their beautiful land of Eagles, and showed her empathy and a true sense of sisterhood and feminism; she was always there for these women and she knew how to calm them and talk with them the way I couldn’t. Telling your life story to some unknown women from Serbia is not easy, and it can get pretty emotional. And it did a few times.

I was there to translate their stories just as I hear them, but I had to type them, because I couldn’t speak, my voice is not supposed to be heard in the movie; not in that way, at least.

What we had to do was to communicate, and Minja and Nada both needed to know what these women were saying, so Minja could continue interviewing them, and Nada filming them. That’s why I was typing it the whole time. There were times where I couldn’t translate that fast, or I couldn’t type that fast, so Minja had to wait for me to read it to her and explain what they meant by that, so it was quite a challenge. Amazingly, one thing was always understood.

“This is a safe place.
You can talk to us.”

So I thank Desarta, cause she was the one creating that safe place, even when things seemed like falling apart… What I’m trying to say is, this movie was done with love. And it was done by women and for women.
And I truly can’t wait for you to see #Kismet

Милена, Film participant and Translator volunteer

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