Tag: cinema

On 28 July 2011, the Ukrainian premiere of the animated film "The Lion King 3D" took place. It was the world's first open premiere of the 3D version of the film — before that, it had only been shown at a festival in Scotland. I couldn't pass up such an opportunity, so on the day of the premiere I headed to the "Multiplex" cinema in Mykolaiv, since in Kherson there's still no place where you can properly watch a film on a big screen.

I hadn't been to a cinema in about seven years and had never seen 3D films, while I've watched TLK countless times, so I won't be able to assess what I saw adequately. Likewise, I'm not Russian and can't judge how "hilarious" the Ukrainian translation is.

I received the Blu-Ray Disc of the film «White Lion» almost a month ago and have already managed to rewatch it three times. To be honest, it was precisely because of this film that I bought a Blu-Ray drive, so that I could watch a region «A» disc. I'd waited for the film almost 4 years, ever since I first learned about it while looking up information on Kevin Richardson after the news featured a story and the first photos of the lion whisperer.

The film follows the life of the white lion Letsatsi, starting from his very birth. The story is told by an old Shangaan to a group of schoolchildren. His role is played by John Kani, who also appeared in another well-known film about lions, «The Ghost and the Darkness». The narrator's voice is heard more than any other in the film and fits into it superbly; John Kani's voice and intonations captivate the children, the film crew, and the viewer alike.

First I watched «White Lion» twice in the original with English subtitles, then I set about translating them, which I've already written about earlier. It's an interesting undertaking, you just need plenty of time, though you can spend small stretches during breaks at work. After that I watched the film all the way through with a rough draft of the Russian subtitles, correcting them as I watched, so that the information would be easier to take in in Russian. And the last time I watched it with a professional Russian voice-over, which is good, good in that it doesn't drown out the narrator's voice and lets those who don't know the language immerse themselves better in the film, even though it doesn't fully convey the characters' intonations and the meaning of some expressions.

Yes, «White Lion» flopped at the box office, was coolly received by audiences and got mediocre ratings from critics. But for me it's one of the best films and I'm ready to give it the highest score. Thank you to Rodney Fuhr for making his dream come true, going all the way, bringing in Kevin Richardson. Not everyone would set out to film a movie for three years in order to capture specifically Africa's summer views, lush with greenery, and to pour an enormous sum of money into it that's unlikely to pay off. This is the kind of film that some people want and dream of seeing; we're unlikely to see anything like it soon, if we ever see it at all.

I set up a translation of the English subtitles for the film "White Lion" into Russian on "Notabenoid". Right now 100% of the subtitles have already been translated, but the translation isn't finished yet. It didn't turn out to be very collaborative — so far only four people have taken part. For some subtitles there are already several identical translation variants; someone needs to at least vote for the more fitting ones so they make it into the release, since giving minuses to other translators isn't a nice thing to do, and you can't give yourself a plus. Also, for some variants there still aren't good translations that fit well and don't feel off-putting.

There isn't much speech in the film, but it's quite original and interesting — you learn a lot in the course of translating. It would be good if someone could properly convey the narrative speech of the Shangaan African people, as well as the colloquial speech of the white hunters and a farmer from the '50s.

You can translate and vote for translations at the following link: http://notabenoid.com/book/16710/54931/
You can take part in the translation without registering on the site — I made it open to everyone. You can download the unfinished subtitle translation here.

The subtitles match the timing of the American DVD and Blu-ray releases of the film, as well as their rips. These days it's no problem to find and download an English DVDRip of "White Lion" with English subtitles. But on Notabenoid I also added, to the original subtitles, text describing the locations and a translation of the African speech — which is hardcoded into the video and absent from the original text subtitles.

I've already written about the South African premiere of White Lion - Home... is a Journey; the film was a success and won several awards at local film festivals. Then it came out on DVD at the start of the summer. An attempt to order the disc on Kalahari.net came to nothing — although they do ship discs to our parts, charging more for delivery than the disc itself costs, paying for the order didn't work out; it seems the bank refused to accept the transaction in South African rand (ZAR), and there was no time to sort it out.

Selling the broadcast rights for the rest of the world didn't go smoothly: right away they promised to show it everywhere and negotiations were under way, but there was no word of any positive result. Only recently did it become known that Screen Media had acquired the rights to distribute the film in North America; I already posted a link to this news on Twitter @bigcat_ru. I dropped by their website, where they already have the theatrical premiere date of 15 October 2010 and have posted that same old trailer with the company logo added at the start. I see they changed the film's poster for the American premiere, and accordingly the header on the official site, removing the people from them, making them brighter, and shortening the title to simply White Lion. I put the site header at the top of this post; the trailer from the Screen Media Films site is below the cut.

As I understand it, a theatrical premiere means that in a couple of months a DVD will come out in region one and you'll be able to buy it through Amazon without any problems. I hope they won't cut anything out of the North American version of the film, but given their political correctness...

Vital footage from the film "White Lion" was stolen from the creators during filming in 2006, but now, four years later, the film is ready to conquer the big screen.

Producer Kevin Richardson says that the theft meant it took longer to finish, but it was worth it.

"The crime couldn't beat us, we're persistent filmmakers. It set us back and we had to rethink a lot, but we really did manage to shoot the same thing all over again," Richardson states.

The film tells us the story of Letsatsi, a rare white lion. The premiere in South Africa will take place on February 19. Legal matters around international distribution are in the final stages of being resolved; the film may hit cinemas worldwide by the end of the year, and then come out on DVD.

More information can be found on the official sites of Kevin Richardson and the film "White Lion".