Russian Presence in G eorgian Film Dubbing: Scales of Inferiority

In G eorgia, a law enacted on J anuary 1, 2011 mandated that all foreign language films possess either G eorgian dubbing or subtitling for public film showings. This legal measure was targeted at removing R ussian presence in film language, as part of then‐ P resident S aakashvili's shift away from alignments with R ussia and R ussianness in G eorgian public cultural life. This article investigates the ideological and institutional dimensions of the creation of a new film dubbing industry in T bilisi for an audience that was critical of it. R ussian technical and artistic expression remained the rubric against which G eorgian dubbing was compared. S oviet and R ussian forms, which continue to permeate the G eorgian social world, have structured expectations about “quality” or “art” in dubbing. Additionally, evaluations of dubbing as a form of linguistic mediation described G eorgian language as in a relationship of inferiority with respect to R ussian, which has long been linked to high‐culture forms of sociotechnical mediation. The emergence of a new film dubbing industry in G eorgia draws out a number of contradictions in the ways that the institutional calibration of foreignness inheres in labor, aesthetics, and technical forms.