Tradurre il cinema nativo americano: Proposta di sottotitolaggio del film "Mekko" di Sterlin Harjo

In this dissertation, I analyze the subtitling process for a multilingual and multicultural film. The final product with Italian subtitles was included in the Human Rights Nights festival and shown during the October 2016 edition. The film, “Mekko”, was directed by Native American director Sterlin Harjo and is set among the Native American homeless community of Tulsa, Oklahoma. The original audiovisual product includes both the American English and the Native American Creek languages, and the presence of more than one language and culture had a fundamental impact on the translation process into Italian. The dissertation is structured into three main chapters. Chapter 1 discusses audiovisual translation and focuses on subtitling, describing its criteria and its most used strategies. Chapter 2 analyzes the history of Native American cinema and stereotypes, as well as the main cultural and social themes of the film “Mekko”. It also provides some information about the Human Rights Nights festival and my experience with the projection of the film. Chapter 3 describes the methodology, as well as the challenges for the translation and the adaptation process of subtitles. Furthermore, it provides practical examples and motivations for the translations and adaptations choices that were made during the subtitling process. In the end, I offer some final thoughts about the whole translation process and creation of subtitles.