Film dubbing as subversion: discover the Romanian heroine of forbidden cinema at ICA

This weekend London’s Institute of Contemporary Arts will host VHS in Off-World / Film Dubbing as Subversion, a unique event centering on the illegal screening of western films in communist Romania and featuring a discussion with Irina Margareta Nistor, who risked arrest to dub many of these films.

Nistor will take us back to between 1984-89 in communist Bucharest, when thousands of pirated VHS tapes were clandestinely screened in the tower blocks of the Romanian capital — Nistor was the defiant translator and voice of these unfamiliar and explosive films. The evening will see Nistor will discuss forbidden culture with curator David Ellis, and will include a demonstration the screening of original VHS material, illustrative slides and audio-visual essays, Glitch video presentations by artist and broadcaster Simon Tyszko and a demonstration of “live” dubbing in homage to Nistor.

Joining Nistor and Ellis will be musician and curator of the Audio X-Ray Project Stephen Coates, who will introduce his new book The Strange Story of Soviet Music ‘On The Bone’, which offers a rare insight into the world of bootleg recordings made during the Cold War era in Russia.

More information can be found here.