“Enthusiastic intermediaries who bring texts to light by opting for their shadows”. It is in these expressive words that newspaper Le Monde’s film critic Jacques Mandelbaum defines translators, in his ecstatic review of Nurith Aviv’s film “Translating”.

This documentary, now showing at cinema “Les 3 Luxembourg” in Paris, is the last part of a trilogy entirely devoted to the Hebrew language and its historical, cultural, religious and political implications. The first part (“From one language to another”, 2004) dealt with bilingualism and double cultural belonging, which are common phenomena in an country of immigration like Israel. The second one (“Sacred Language, Spoken Language”, 2008) went on to question Hebrew as a revived language, long restricted to the study of sacred texts.

In Translating, a Babel-like film, the director gives the floor to translators from different countries (France, Spain, USA …), each of them recounting in their own language the experience of passing on the Hebrew literature across centuries: the Midrash (Jewish analysis of the Bible), medieval Hebrew poetry, modern and contemporary literature etc.

“Traduire” (“Translating”), by Nurith Aviv (Israel, 1h10min)

From January 19

Cinéma 3 Luxembourg

67 rue Monsieur-le-Prince,

Paris 6ème

Read film review published in Le Monde