2nd August, 2008

DAVID ADAMS

It’s been translated into hundreds of languages across the world - everything from Mandarin Chinese to Bhojpuri, spoken in India, and Bijago, spoken in Guinea-Bissau - and is now being translated into several hundred more. Billions have seen it and for some, it represents the first time they’ve ever seen the moving image of film.

BRINGING TO LIFE THE GOSPEL OF CHRIST: The JESUS film being shown in Zambia. "What’s especially important is that people see that their brothers and sisters in Christ care enough to translate the JESUS film into their language so they too can learn about God and His saving grace." -  Greg Gregoire, the US-based chief of staff for the JESUS Film Project

The JESUS film, which recounts the story of the life, death and ressurection of Jesus Christ, last month marked the debut of its 1000th translation - this time into a language called Lanka Kol, spoken by more than a million people in India.

Produced by Campus Crusade for Christ, the JESUS film debuted in the US in 1979. It has since been seen by an estimated audience of more than five billion people and, according to the producers, is the most translated film in history. It aims to provide people of all nations the opportunity to hear about Jesus Christ in their own language.

Greg Gregoire, the US-based chief of staff for the JESUS Film Project, says there is nothing more thrilling than for someone to experience a movie in their “heart language”.

“Having the movie in the viewer’s language causes them to feel that they can relate to the movie because the movie seems to have been made with them in mind,” he says.

“For the least reached people groups, this is especially significant because it shows that someone cared enough to make it possible for them to understand in their own language, culture and vernacular since movies are seldom made in their language. What’s especially important is that people see that their brothers and sisters in Christ care enough to translate the JESUS film into their language so they too can learn about God and His saving grace."

Gregoire recalls responses from those who have watched the film for the first time, including that of a Bolivian man who said that when he had heard the words in Spanish they'd gone into his head but that when he had heard the words in his native language of Quechua, they'd gone into his heart.

Then there was the response of a woman who had first watched the film in French West Indian Creole: “I heard Jesus speak Creole and I felt for the first time He was speaking to me personally.”

The JESUS film, which was shot in Israel, took seven months to make and was preceded by a five year research program, involving 500 scholars, to ensure its Biblical and historical accuracy.

Apart from being dubbed into new translations, the JESUS film has undergone few changes - the exceptions being some enhancements in sound and image quality - since it was launched in 1979 (although in 2003 Campus Crusade released The Story of Jesus for Children which incorporates 40 minutes of the original JESUS film into a new drama about a fictional group of children who lived in 30 AD) .

It generally takes around two years to translate and record the film into a new language with care taken to ensure the number of syllables in the new script match those in the original English script to provide good lip-synchronisation in the final product. To that end, there is a team of 40 people around the world involved in co-ordinating the translation and recording of the film.

PREPARING A SCRIPT: Translation can take between three months and five years and care is taken to ensure the final product has good lip synchronisation.

The film is currently being translated into another 235 languages, including some of those of West Africa: Anufo, spoken by around 173,000 people in Togo; Bambara, spoken by more than 2.7 million people in Mali; and Yom, spoken by 74,000 people in Benin. The JESUS FIlm Project aims to translate the film into every language with more than 100,000 speakers.

New translations are recorded on location to ensure the voice actors are speaking in the accent and vernacular of the locals.

For some, the film will be the first time they ever see the medium of the moving image.

“The technology of movies does cause some stir in that many have never seen a movie and don’t understand the close-up shots,” Gregoire says. “They wonder how a man with only a head can walk around. Their comment is, ‘Someone must carry them in a bag’. In many of these situations we must show the film two or three times before they understand the medium and grasp the impact of the story. “

Yet Gregoire says that of even greater impact is the fact that the film is spoken in their own language.

“One of our greatest responses is for a village leader to say ‘How does that man speak our language, I’ve never seen him in our village?’,” he says.

~ www.ccci.org