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Persian (Farsi) to English: Letter from Iran-The Guardian, UK
Source text - Persian (Farsi) See original at:
http://www.iranian.com/Features/2003/May/Tehran/Images/text.gif
Translation - English Today is an official holiday. It is Thursday the 11th of Ordibehesht or the 1st of May and it is a public holiday here. But this isn¹t because it¹s International Worker¹s Day, but because of the anniversary of the death of the prophet Mohammed. But for those of us who are second-class citizens (or to use the term that Mesbah Yazdi has coined for us merely Œambulant pieces of flesh attached to legs¹, for those of us who are of no use to the ³Islamic regime²‹which should in truth be referred to as ³the greatest human tragedy in the memory of recent human civilization²) for us, it makes no difference what day it is. I was up all night glued to the computer screen ³to earn my daily bread². (Here I use the hackneyed expression ³to earn my bread² to mean precisely that and nothing more). At about 6:30 or 7:00 a.m. I fell sleep and managed briefly to flee the weight of my troubles, the totality of which I am now used to, knowing all the while that they will one day spell my end: exhaustion, back aches, eye strain, headaches, heart palpitations, and the thousand other terrible things. I was shattered. What do Mullahs know about such things?
At around 10:30 or 11 a.m. Afshin calls to say that Mahmoud Vakili has been arrested. My brain is still asleep. I concentrate and try to understand what he is saying. He says Mahtab, Mahmoud¹s sister, called him to say Mahmoud had been arrested on Tuesday and had been taken away. She had said that we should not contact their house directly. Afshin says he doesn¹t have Ali¹s number and asks me to call Ali and let him know. He is lying. He is lying when he says he doesn¹t have Ali¹s number. He is too afraid to call Ali, afraid of getting himself caught in some kind of trouble. Ali is well known. Just last week he was telling us that his phone was tapped. Not that he¹s a political activist. Oh no! All he is is a film critic. He writes about the arts. He like us can now be found guilty of this new crime. This is our lot, us. We, the lucky few, in this hell hole. My brain slowly kicks into gear. I too am afraid, why lie? I am afraid too. We are those simpler souls, who sought to steer clear of any sort of political fuss in this accursed corner of the planet. We eliminated every shred of ambition from our lives and instead of seeking solace in morphine or heroin, in acid, joints, gangs, bribes, theft, womanizing or any of a thousand other afflictions that may have afforded us comfort, we chose instead to turn to culture and art and cinema. We chose to step into a dream--the dream of things we don¹t have. But now they have chosen to shatter this dream with sentences of so many lashes of the whip and jail time and torture and dishonor and accusations. This makes us afraid, you see. Can you understand that we are afraid? What do Mullahs care about such things?
Who is Mahmoud Vakili, the man who has been arrested? Unlike Kambiz Kaheh and Abdi and Amir Ezzati and Yassamin Sofi and Sina Motallebbi he is not well known. So there are no protests when he is arrested. No one even knows. There was a time when his entire heart and mind was consumed by books and by films. He would not conform; unlike the rest of those in this society. One day he finally understood that here you can¹t live in peace if you chose to be yourself. You must conform. He became one of the many hundreds of thousands who came to the conclusion that in this land of gold and power, of dishonesty and hypocrisy, and of ignorance in the name of god and of the crushing of human dignities, here in this land there was no place for him. This was many years ago. Together with his sister Mahtab and her young child they set out. For a year they traipsed around Holland and Austria and Germany and Italy and Bulgaria and Turkey, hoping that perhaps one of these well-fed individuals in these ³anti-war² countries would afford them protections. These people who care enough to protect the rights of animals and of the environment and who greet news from America with a 70¹s tinged nostalgia redolent of rock and electric guitars, pot-smoking and memories of the Cold War, the red flag and that sort of rubbish, and who without understanding much at all set out to march and chant anti-American slogans‹Mahmoud Vakili wandered these people¹s land in the hope that perhaps someone there would understand or care about what it was he wished to escape. Perhaps someone would afford him and his sister their protection. But no one did, no one, no one at all. And a little more than a year later, sadder, ever more broken and more crumpled, they returned to the rubbles they had sought to leave, to Iran.
Mahmoud Vakili fit nowhere in the Œsystem¹. There was no crack or fissure through which he could gain entry. Finally he became a ³filmi². A term and an occupation which must not exist anywhere in this world other than in this wasteland. He collected films on tape and on DVD, threw them in his shoulder bag and rented them to people. But there was this very great difference between him and all those others who rented films: in his archive you could find films by Ford and Hawks and Von Sternberg and Griffith, as well as by Lynch, Jarmusch and Kurturica and Aronofsky and Almodavar and Von Trier. You could see films by genre, or choose a historical period to study, watch New Wave films or American Independent cinema, you could start in Mexico or Brazil and go all the way to Greece and Gurjistan or Kazakistan and always see good, thought-provoking films. Mahmoud never sold out. Even after he chose a profession such as this, devoid as it was of any apparent glory, he remained faithful to himself and stayed his course. In doing so what he did for his customers that would be us was that he created a moving institute of film and culture. Over the course of years, the days we were to see Mahmoud ³to get films² were good and happy days in our sad lives and every time we went to his house we chatted for a couple of hours about films and cinema and topical issues of the day. We were able to distance ourselves a little, albeit for a short while, from the soiled atmosphere and from all the anxieties that suffocate us here in this lost land. We were a small society unlike anything to be found around here these days. We had a space where we were able to unburden ourselves of our latest grievances and we knew the others would listen. That was all. We plotted no conspiracies or revolutions. That¹s not our job. But what do the Mullahs care about what we have to say?
On Sunday, that was the last day we saw Mahmoud, he wasn¹t feeling well. He said that Reza Jayeri his partner had been arrested and that he was worried. He was afraid. Just like Afshin was. Like I am. Like all those who deal with culture and the arts and who steer clear of the noisy heroics and pretenses of freedom-fighting are now afraid. We said ³Should we stop coming?² and he said ³No, keep coming.² We said ³Get your films out of the house.² But I don¹t think he had time. Ali said he had seen Kambiz (Kaheh) who is free on bail awaiting his trial. Ali said Kaheh said nothing. Nothing at all. He said Kaheh was not working, was not watching films and he was not writing. Of course not. How simplistic to imagine that he would be capable of doing any of these things. Those in charge act as they do because they seek this very result. Theirs is a silent terrorism directed at individuals. It is a terrorism of minds, of thoughts. It seeks to drive its victims into solitary isolation. They know exactly what they are doing. What can a Kambiz Kaheh--and so many others‹do if he stops watching films and writing and thinking? Those in charge know full well what they are doing. Carefully and patiently they have identified the most complete collections and archives there are and have proceeded to destroy them: Amir Ezati, Kambiz Kaheh and Mohammad Abdi¹s film and book archives were among the greatest resources available in this barren land. Now they are gone forever. Another such archive was Mahmoud¹s. We worried for it and rightly so. It too has now been eliminated. Now our Forces of Law and Order (!) will, as promised, mount an exhibition to proudly demonstrate the eradication of the roots of corruption. Oh yesŠ all vestiges of AIDS, of petty thefts and robberies, of corruption, unemployment and mafia relations have been eradicatedŠ Oh joy! And later, after the exhibition, we know full well what will become of the films and books. Certain films, if they contain action scenes or perhaps titillating scenes, and a few others like Ben Hur or Gone With the Wind will end up in the homes of this or that official or some parasite or other who lives off government hand-outs. The rest will be destroyed. That will be that.
Is it Mahmoud¹s fate that I mourn? Or the fate of all the others? Or is it my own fate? Or maybe that of all those films? I look at the films I had picked out this week. How pleased I had been to get a DVD of Lynch¹s Lost Highway and of John Ford¹s How the West Was Won. How delighted I had been that a decent quality copy of Polanski¹s The Pianist was already circulating in Iran and that we could watch it. Oh! How I regret my decision not to take The Enigma of Kasper Hauser and to leave it till next week. What are those parasites going to do with it now? I look again at the DVD of The Pianist and my whole being is permeated with bitter cynicism Who will tell the story of our Auchwitz? The one that is as big as Iran? In it the life of your body is left intact but your heart and your mind are eradicated. Do you think the Mullahs have seen Farenheit 451? I feel the few films I have in hand have been spared the destructive fire. It is now my responsibility to protect them.
Name any porn movie, from the most banal to those in which humans are atop animals and vice versa, to films showing private parties and naked women in pools. Any one of the frustrated and unemployed young men who populate the country‹themselves the fruit of the Revolution--can easily get their hands on these tapes to take the edge off of their myriad longings. At every public intersection and every busy square these films are readily available. And it really makes no difference where you live: Shahrakeh Gharb, Tajrish,Enqhelaab Square or Dowlat Aabaad; Tehran or Qom or Mashad now forsaken by God or Ali Aabaad Katool.* Furthermore, the dealer¹s face is identical, recognizable, familiar. It¹s a dirty face. It¹s always the same men, wearing the same greasy slightly long hair and mustaches and ugly leather jackets, handling prayer beads in one hand. While a stone¹s throw away a scumbag in uniform harasses a young woman whose hair may have slipped out from under her scarf, while some young man walking along with a young woman friend has to answer to the scumbag to avoid being sentenced to lashes of the whip, and while, not far from them an unfortunate prostitute steps into the 30 or 40 million toman vehicle belonging to this or that devout Haji to sell herself for 10 or 20 thousand tomans and not go hungry; at this very same moment one of those greaseballs murmurs in your ear, ³tapes, cd¹s films². Ah! Do you think he is offering you the latest film by Alfonso Cuaron or Walter Salles or Xiang Yimou? Do you think the Mullahs understand such things? You are wrong. They are stomping on the flames they have lit and are laughing at you and I. They are laughing out loud. They stand in prayer and mourn Imam Hossein and take Haj Khanoom, the wife, to Mecca and to Syria; they take temporary wives and buy stocks in Free Port trade zone projects. They engage in smuggling, acquire exclusive dealerships, export girls and at the same time they attend Friday Prayers and chant Death to America. But it is we who are dying not the Americans. This is our death sentence.
Neither George Bush, nor Mohammad Khatami, neither the anti-war Europeans nor the ³innocent² Palestinians nor the Conservatives really give a damn about us. They all have their own agendas. The reformists care about their reforms and their so-called freedom and democracy. Meanwhile our lives are plundered. Often we quote Osip Mandelstam who said that everything in this world could be regained but hope. Hope has fled the weak flicker of our gaze. There will be no miracles. In our 20¹s and 30¹s we are already old and will become older still. Our pale and broken faces will only know serenity in death. They will bury us and scatter the earth over us and ululate. But there will not be a soul. Only when this land is cleansed of the evil countenance and terrible names of this strange generation of third millennium vampires; then will a smile graze our lips.
French to English: Phenomenon-A Story by Chris Marker
Source text - French You can find the original French story here:
http://www.vajramedia.com/cm/cm_phenomene.html
Translation - English The translation, which was also published in the Los Angeles Times can be read here:
http://www.vajramedia.com/cm/cm_phenomenon.htm
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Experience
Years of experience: 10. Registered at ProZ.com: Oct 2001.
California Courts-Law firms
Interpreting assignments: trials and depositions.
REDCAT Film/Video, Walt Disney Concert Hall, Los Angeles, CA
Interpreter for Iranian filmmaker Moslem Mansouri
2003
MGM
Translation of Siddiq Barmak, Afghan Filmmaker’s documents for MGM publicity department.
Zoetrope Allstory
Short story by filmmaker Abbas Kiarostami translated for a special issue Zoetrope All Cinema.
The Guardian
Letter from Tehran/Mullahs and the Movies published in UK-June 25, 2003
Wellspring Productions, New York
Interpreter for Bahman Ghobadi, Kurdish-Iranian film director.
Magnolia Productions, New York
Interpreter for Rakhshan Bani-Etemad, Iranian film director; translated all press materials.
San Francisco International Film Festival
Interpreter for Iranian film star Manijeh Hekmat, award winning Iranian film director.
A la carte translations
Freelance job: official documents outsourced by translation agency.
2002
Lion’s Gate/Sobini Films
Translation of screenplay by Babak Payami for Mark Amin
Ilex Foundation
Translation of 60 hours of audio interviews with Iranian filmmakers for Godfrey Cheshire’s book on the Iranian cinema. Funded through a grant from the Ilex Foundation.
2001
Silk Road Productions - Paris, France
Starline Tours - Los Angeles
Golestan Productions - Los Angeles
Writer/translator - screenplays, treatments and business documents.
Clark Translations
Freelance jobs: business documents, official documents were outsourced by translation agency.
UCLA
Interpreter for Iranian film star Behrooz Vossoughi film screenings and discussion.
San Francisco International Film Festival
Interpreter for Iranian film star Behrooz Vossoughi. tribute program and press panel.
New York Film Festival
Interpreter for Jafar Panahi director of award winning film The Circle.
Press conference, Q&A’s.
AFI Film Festival
Interpreter for Bahman Ghobadi director of award winning film A Time for Drunken Horses.
Press interviews, Q&A’s.
Telluride Film Festival
Interpreter for Bahman Ghobadi director of award winning film A Time for Drunken Horses.
Press interviews, Q&A’s, seminars.
San Francisco International Film Festival
Interpreter for award winning Iranian film director Abbas Kiarostami and Iranian film star Behrooz Vossoughi.
Press conference, interviews, Q&A’s.
1998
Telluride Film Festival
Interpreter for award winning Iranian film director Samira Makhmalbaf.
Press interviews, seminar.
1997
Telluride Film Festival
Interpreter for award winning Iranian film director Abbas Kiarostami.
Press interviews, seminar, Q&A.
COURT REGISTERED TRANSLATOR/INTERPRETER – STATE OF CALIFORNIA
References available upon request.
Keywords: Farsi (Persian) and French Translator, Interpreter specializing in legal, business, art, and literature. Quick, professional and accurate. Court registered, State of California. Over 10 years experience.
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