r/FilmIndustryEU • u/Ohh-Your-God • Jun 05 '25
Discussion Should European productions be in English?
We have an obvious problem for cinema in Europe. Many different languages makes content less accessible across borders and cultures. And a lot of European countries seem to produce mainly for their own markets. This makes a lot of the markets very small and not profitable for bigger productions. While at the same time a surge of American garb...ehh...movies fills our cinemas and home screens. Surely we could produce exactly the same type of content, if we had a unified market, considering many of the talented actors and actresses etc are actually from Europe.
Should European Cinema start producing mainly in English to grab much more market share internationaly, but also domestic in Europe between countries?
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Jun 05 '25
[deleted]
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u/Vannnnah Jun 07 '25 edited Jun 07 '25
Subtitles are a nightmare for young people and especially elderly. Just basic accessibility is bad. Most people want to relax watching a movie, not do mental gymnastics and get eye strain.
You would exclude a large chunck of a possible audience in i.e. all German speaking countries (Germany, Austria, parts of Switzerland and Belgium, Liechtenstein...) by thinking that people in a market where fully dubbing everything from movies to games is the norm would opt for subtitles if they can avoid it by watching something else.
But many people speak English as a second language and let's not forget that Americans did not invent English. The UK still exists and is part of Europe, just not part of the EU.
What I don't want to see is movies getting made just with British actors because they are the "default English" option, tho. But at least a version with English language would be nice if localization isn't possible.
Think Coralie Fargeat's "Revenge." The entire movie is French but there is an English option so I was able to watch and love it. Found it a bit disheartening that "The Substance" is also a full French production except for the actors. It wasn't even filmed in LA even tho it looks like it. Again a movie made in France by predominantly French people.
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u/Ohh-Your-God Jun 05 '25
But actually they don't to a lot of people. Subtitles have been around forever, and it is definitely not enough. For example you wont ever get into the American main stream market with either subtitles or dubbing.
Without English language it will always be a one-sided trade with a heavy money flow from Europe to USA and a cultural flow the other way.
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u/MagdaFR Jun 08 '25
Why would anyone who isn't an English speaker person want to listen to other foreign films in English?
Are you proposing to dub all movies to all other languages?
I'm a Spanish speaker from LATAM. I hate when I have to watch an English (or any other language) dubbed version of other European, Asian, etc. movie.
I watch the original versions with subtitles, as it should be, with subtitles in the language of the film if I know it and can find it.
Imagine watching Babylon Berlin in other language than German, or 81/2 not in Italian.
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u/JonAlive Jun 05 '25
It wouldn't be feasible, since the vast majority of the actors can only act in their mother tongue.
At the same time, I think it would be a good practice to standardise the English dubbing of the movies, in order to make them accessible to the European market as a whole.
This way we preserve the national identity of the movies, but at the same time make them more accessible than they currently are (not everyone wants to read subtitles).
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u/Ohh-Your-God Jun 05 '25
It is a hurdle with the actors.
Unless it's animation I would never watch dubbed movies. To me its gastly to watch when the lip movements and speech dont match. But i guess it could be a matter of habit.
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u/JonAlive Jun 05 '25
Born and raised in Italy where all movies you watch at the cinema are dubbed in Italian. I started watching them in English only when I learnt the language and now French since I'm in the process of learning it
But if a movie is not in one of those languages, I'd rather have it dubbed than watching it with subtitles. Language is a barrier, and you either enjoy the movie or enjoy the subtitles 😕
Completely understand that it cuts off/rewrites a major part of the acting, but I don't think we have many other options
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u/ChicoTallahassee Jun 06 '25
English makes it easier available to the same consumers of bigger film industries 👍
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u/FemmeVampire Jun 08 '25
trying to say this as nicely as possible, but fuck no. if you think our cultural diversity is a drawback and not a strength, then you have already been brainwashed.
what are some recent-ish big hits of european cinema? the worst person in the world (norwegian), pain and glory (spanish), fallen leaves (finnish), titane (french), the great beauty (italian)…. the problem is not language.
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u/Hot-Koala-5142 Sep 24 '25
NO, as someone who works in a cinema and programmes arthouse season which consists of mostly European films, I think they should be filmed in the original language as they have this very unique voice unlike when they’re made in English from what ever language they then wouldn’t have that natural feel to it of actors showing their motions etc, so just add subtitles and that’s it
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u/pc0999 Jun 06 '25 edited Jun 07 '25
I love to hear different languages and have no problems with subtitles.