Distance vs onsite (non-) streamed interpreting performances: a focus on the renditions of film scenes

The digital turn has changed every aspect of our lives, including the media ecosystem, which is today dominated by new digital media (Jensen 2021). In addition, the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on both our private and professional lives has been both unexpected and profound. Interpreting services have been no exception. Drawing upon examples of Italian<>English film festival interpreting, the present paper investigates this digital turn. Data are taken from authentic performances provided at Giffoni, one of the most important Italy-based international film festivals. Some of its events are live-streamed and are therefore open to a remote audience made up of online users; moreover, in 2020 because of the pandemic, the Festival used video-mediated interpreting (Braun/Taylor 2012). Consequently, the data sets include onsite streamed events, distance streamed events and onsite non-streamed events. This corpus is analysed qualitatively, focusing in particular on the concept of audience design (Bell 1984, 1991), and more specifically on the renditions of some film scenes. The results show that both the live-streaming and the remoteness features have significant repercussions on the interpreting performances in the three interactional contexts.