The 2nd Most Famous Voice In Cold War Romania (419)

0:00Welcome to Cold War Conversations, the home of real stories of the Cold War.

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0:47Irina Nistor:Find Starbucks frappuccino drinks wherever you buy your groceries. The censorship in the national television was all shows for Tom and Jerry. they would never be on the table with food. This is Cold War Conversations. If you're new here, you've come to the right place to listen to Cold War history. Please make sure you follow us in your podcast app so you don't miss future episodes. Irina Nista worked as a translator of TV programs in Romania under the communist regime and is known for secretly voicing over thousands of banned movie titles on VHS tapes smuggled in from the West. She voiced six to eight films a night from Dr.

1:29Zhivago to cartoons her children watched. Her Romanian language voiceovers spread across the country, reaching crowded living rooms where families gathered around rare VHS players. These films offered Romanians a forbidden glimpse of life beyond the Iron Curtain, stories free of ideology filled with possibility and freedom. I'm delighted to welcome Irina Nistor to our Cold War conversation. Just a quick heads up, this was recorded over a phone line from Bucharest, so the audio isn't great in some places, but it's definitely an account well worth listening to. I was born in 1957 in Bucharest, Romania.

2:11My mother, she was a French professor at the Polytechnical School, and my father was an engineer. and my grandparents also because we are living together. They were both my grandfather was also an engineer and my grandmother, she was a chemist, but she worked late after the communists came in power because before the wives were at home taking care of the child of my mother. What was their view of the communist regime in Romania? Totally against it. First of all, because I'm a starter that my grandfather For example, he was a veteran of the First World War, so he had the possibility to go on a pension when he was 47 years old.

3:02And he said, OK, I'm not working anymore under the communist regime. I have the possibility to have my money. Of course, it wasn't an important amount of money. and that's why he continued to make translations, by the way, from Italian, technical translation, because the money was enough. And he worked also for the Weather Institute in Romania. He was the deputy director of the Weather Institute in Romania, but he left everything when the communists came in power. He said, I'll never work under the communist regime. And so in order to understand his point of view and my family's point of view, we're listening to The Voice of America, to Radio Free Europe and so on.

3:50We were totally against it. Was there anybody else in your family, any brothers or sisters? No, no, no, no, no. Because I was born, as I was saying, in 57 and so on. And I was born in a hospital when I got sick immediately after that. I was 13 days old when a priest came in for a baptize in order not to die without being baptized because you have no right to a grave if you are not baptized in the Orthodox religion. So they admitted a priest in the hospital to baptize me and then all the other mothers, they also asked the priest to come and say a prayer for them. And immediately after that, I felt a little bit better.

4:36But it took time, a month or something, until I was really better. Because at the beginning, the doctor said, 13 days old, we are not giving her oxygen. Make another child. You are only 26. My mother was 26 years old. And she said, make another child. We don't have enough oxygen. We are not going to spend it on her. Yes. So after that, one year later, my mother lost a kidney. so she couldn't have any more children. Wow, that's incredibly callous from the doctors. Yeah, extremely, yes, of course. What sort of accommodation were you living in? Were you in a flat or a house? No, for my whole life we stayed in the same house.

5:24It's a house, it's more or less if you say a villa, not very fancy, but it's a villa in Bucharest, not in the center of Bucharest, because it was nearby on that time when they built it in 1939, my grandparents and my grand-grandparent also, my grand-grandfather. It was still in Bucharest, but two streets later it's outside Bucharest. Now, of course, Bucharest is huge, so it's not the same situation. and so the villa was built in 1939 and we have two rooms downstairs and a kitchen and three rooms upstairs three bedrooms upstairs and a bathroom but when the communists came in power so after 1947 in the 50s especially the three rooms upstairs it was compulsory to have other people in these three rooms So for us, they stayed just the two rooms downstairs for the five of us.

6:32So my grandmother, my grandfather, my father, my mother and myself just in the two rooms downstairs and no access to the bathroom. So we had the shower downstairs in the cellar. Sorry. Yes. Did you have any relatives in the West? Yes, we have relatives in the West. At the beginning, they were in Romania. I mean, in the center of Bucharest, I don't know if you've ever been to Bucharest. In the center of Bucharest, there is a very nice building. It's called the Feun building in the very center of Bucharest on the Victoria Avenue. And one of the engineers working there was a Spaniard, and he got in love with my grandfather's cousin, and they got married.

7:30They had two children, and during Stalin's time, they were supposed to take the Romanian citizenship and to be also members of the Communist Party or to leave Romania. So, of course, they said, okay, we'll leave Romania. They left, but of course, in Spain, it was Franco in power, so they couldn't go in Spain. They stayed for some years in Switzerland and then in Spain. So from time to time, they were writing just a little bit to know about them and so on, but not too much because, as you know, it was very complicated to have some relatives outside Romania. And we also have some relatives in France because on my grandmother's side, we are a quarter French.

8:18and some of them, they went back to France, but unfortunately in France they become communists and a couple of them, they came to Romania in the 70s. Fortunately, not with us, but with other relatives of us. The husband there, when he went back to France, he said, you know, we were in Romania and they were completely unsatisfied with the communist regime and so on. And one of my grandmother's cousins went to jail for that. So we didn't love so much the relatives from France. Did they send you presents or anything from abroad? From Spain, I think twice. And they also came to Romania once. And I remember that it was radio with audio cassettes.

9:16I remember they sent because we asked for that. And some Christmas-colored tinsel. I still remember it. I was very happy with this. Yes, yes, yes. And, you know, there were some angels and you have a light there and they were running like that thanks to the heart of the light and so on. But the tinsel, I still have the tinsel. is colored because in Romania we had just that silver tinsel you see you know the tinsel town Hollywood yes yeah yeah yeah wow wow and and what what was your schooling like my schooling so first of all I had one year just one year of kindergarten but I got sick after one year and because I had some problem with the liver, I got a bug from the kindergarten, so I didn't finish my kindergarten, so to say.

10:17And then I had eight years of school nearby. There was a school two streets away from my house. And by the way, this school could have this heat with gas, gas, but we weren't permitted to have it in our street, for example. So we had to use steel wood and coal. And after that, a very expensive, I don't know, in French is mazout, but I don't know how to say it in English. And it was extremely expensive to get the heat in the house. So for eight years, I was there. Then one year in the center of the city in a very important high school. It was called Sfintusava, but because it was a saint in the name, wasn't called anymore Sfintusava, but Nicolae Bolchescu, revolutionary from the 19th century and so on, and then came back to Sfintusava.

11:13and then because they didn't have a class for languages or for humanitarian side, just mathematics and physics, I had to move to another high school for three years nearby my house and then when I finished, I entered from the first time, I mean, it was extremely important to pass this exam at the university. We were seven for one place. And I entered the French and English University in Bucharest. So I finished in 1980. So it was extremely important to succeed from the first time because otherwise it was compulsory to get a job. And having a job, you didn't have enough time to prepare again for this entering exam.

12:09and you couldn't not take such a job because they could stop you in the streets asking you, where are you working? Are you a student? No. You are not a student, where are you working? You are not working, you should go to police, you should accept any job and so on. So it was extremely dangerous not to enter the university or wherever you would like to continue your studies. How did you end up working for Romanian TV? It's by passion, to say. Because after entering my university, we went at the seaside, Mamaya Sate it was called. And in there, there was a famous film critic. His name was Pei Sukiano.

12:58And he was famous. I knew him from TV. He wasn't on TV anymore because he was in his 80s. So I was 18 and he was 81. And he couldn't appear on the Romanian television anymore because all the persons weren't permitted to enter in order not to remind Ceausescu that he's old. So no old people could be on TV. But I already discovered him before that on TV and I was so fascinated with him. And somebody introduced me to him. And after that, coming back to Bucharest, we started to go together to the Romanian Cinematheque. And also, every Monday, on Cinema Studios, there is a cinema in the center of the city.

13:51They were showing films just for the member of the Filmmakers Association. and he took me, of course I wasn't a member he was, as I was saying in his 80s, so they permitted him to take me with him and one day he introduced me to Dordor Carafil who was working for the national television and he said you know, she's passionate with films and she knows foreign languages, if you ever need a translator, you could call her and four years later so that was happening in 1976 and in 1980, during the summertime, they couldn't find a translator. They called me and I went to the Romanian television and I translate live.

14:39I remember it was a film with the Ritz brothers, so not the Marx brothers. It's funny. The Ritz brothers were an American family comedy act consisting of brothers Al, Jimmy and Harry Ritz, who performed extensively on stage in nightclubs and in films from 1925 to the late 1970s. Yes, and I succeeded. So with no earphones, no microphones, no nothing. And after that, they used me because I can translate up to 12 hours without stopping. So they need somebody, especially when a TV series was in there to be presented to this censorship committee, is they could enter and get in, get out to go to eat or so.

15:23And I could stay for 12 hours without any break. So it was my passion because even before that, during my four years of university, I was more at the cinematics, but in the university at Matzogit. But I finished with a 10 for my final exam with Cocteau. So I'm very proud of that. But just the final exam with a 10, the rest, no. It's nine something. Yes. Okay. And what sort of foreign programs were they showing on Romanian TV that you had to translate? On that time, so starting with 1980s. So we started in the 80s because the worst moment was starting with 85. By the way, I started to voice over the cassettes, the VCRs.

16:15So in the 80s, they were still showing, of course, extremely censored. For example, Dallas, the TV series, because Ceausescu was quite convinced that like that, the people around understand how awful is America and how awful are the people in power and in money in America. And of course, it was completely wrong when he was doing that. So he was showing such films. They were showing some American films, for example, The Sound of Music, because there were several children there, hoping that everybody would have at least seven children. You know, it was compulsory to have four children. And probably you've seen Munjiwa's film, so you know exactly how it was.

17:01Starting with the end of the 70s, where abortion was completely... you couldn't have it, but you could go to prison or you could also die because if you're not saying who did it to you and so on, they let you die, for example. So many women died during this period of time. So they were showing, still showing some French films, like, for example, the film with Rie de Finesse or Gendarme. They were showing some Romanian films as long as the actors didn't left for other countries. So in such a situation, you were supposed to cut the name of the actor from the screen. Or if it's a well-known one, you couldn't show the film anymore.

18:01and there were some Bulgarian film, Czech film and so on. So from the western part of Europe, less Hungarian, of course, because he was in sort of a fight with the Hungarian all the time. And yes, that was even for 1977, for example, during the earthquake, the horrible earthquake in 1977, it was a Bulgarian film. So on Friday, usually it was a Bulgarian film. All of them were subtitles. You should keep in mind that everything was subtitled. So you could hear the real language which mean English and so on. And that's why people could follow much better English. Even not all of them were studying it in school.

18:48In school, generally, they have French and Russian. But I had, for example, I had French and English at Sventusava. and then I had the second high school, the Italian high school. I wasn't in that Italian class because I came on the second year of high school. I had French and German. You mentioned earlier 1985 and from what I understand it, Romanian TV is only one channel and at that point they're only on for two hours a day. Exactly, yes. And all it was was propaganda. So, you know, there would have been very little knowledge of life outside the country. So there must have been a hunger for films and information when you get approached for this, let's say, other role.

19:39Yeah. Yes. So more or less underground. But as I've told you from the very beginning, I'm not considering myself a dissident or something. I think I was doing that because I wished to see films. I didn't know on that time how important it was for people to see them and that people could see them too. And I think that, but on the other hand, the people, it was the only way to travel. It was the only way to have a passport, you know, a passport outside Romania. It was just because otherwise you couldn't have a passport. And even, for example, it was forbidden also for the children of military people.

20:23They couldn't travel, not even to Bulgaria, so nearby. They couldn't leave Romania. So this idea of stopping people from traveling was a very bad idea, because you can see that in Yugoslavia they could travel, the great majority came back, and so on. So it wasn't such a good idea to stop, and to stop also the children of people in power. They couldn't travel either, you see. Starting or growing your own business can be intimidating and lonely at times. Your to-do list may feel endless with new tasks, and lists can easily begin to overrun your life. So finding the right tool that not only helps you out, but simplifies everything as a built-in business partner can be a game changer.

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22:42So you're voicing over films that have been smuggled into Romania on videocassette. Who was running this operation and how did you get approached? I was approached, first of all, by a guy from the Romanian television. Theoretically, he was on the military side of the fire corps because, you know, on that time, we were working a lot on the 35mm film and they were extremely easy to got fire. So we have a fire brigade, an important fire brigade in the national television. We saw besides the police, Militia was called on that time, and the army also have a fire brigade. And one of the guys, I mean, from the fire brigade, he stopped me.

23:35I still remember, it's exactly like in Chuck Norris versus Communist, just in front of the elevator saying, you know, I know somebody who had some themes, and he would love you to translate them, because he knows that you are translating for the Cinematheque. Because besides the censorship commission, I was also translating for the Cinematechs in Bucharest. So, of course, I went. He checked my English. It's funny because he couldn't speak any language, Tudor Zanfils, the guy who had the whole business. And because I think he was just trying to see if he could follow what I'm saying, if he could follow the film or something like that, because he couldn't speak any language.

24:25And we start like that. We start in November 85, so exactly 40 years ago. And I didn't know that it's going to be for several years and how many there are going to be because he could manage to have films from the people traveling, which means usually the pilots. The pilots and also the people from the ship. I also asked ex-president Basescu if he ever brought some teams to Romania, and he said, yes, yes, I have. So I started like that. I started in November 1985, and I went on like that until the revolution and even after the revolution, yes. So it was technically illegal, but it sounds like it was sanctioned by people high up in the government to some degree.

25:25I think they knew exactly what was happening, that's for sure. They let just an idea that probably you are doing something illegal in order to make you feel all the time afraid, you see. And even when they were going to see films in the houses of people, They were paying a ticket to see the films and so on. And after that, everybody was thinking, oh, God, who on earth could be the one telling on me? Who on earth could be the spy? And like that, they succeeded to make everybody spying everybody and being afraid of everybody. It was a very clever, let's say, way, a very shrewd way of acting. And I think it's still here, this idea, everybody is afraid of everybody, everybody is suspecting everybody.

26:23And it's a way they use it on that time. And how did you actually do the voiceover? Did you watch the film first or you were straight in? No, no, it was on first sight. It was on first sight. All of them were on first sight, by the way. And not only on first sight, but they were also, there were two films on a tape and I couldn't stop for three or four hours because you know a tape has three or four hours. Zamfir saw the guy who had this business. He already put two films on the same tape and I had to do it just on the first side. No chance to stop because after that he was using my voice and the original voice because it was a voiceover, as I was saying.

27:13and put it on the original tape in order not to lose an image, you know, in picture. Because the tapes weren't of the best quality. We didn't know how many copies they were before coming to Romania. We didn't know where from they were taken. Probably they were taken also from hiring tapes in Germany or for sure in Sweden. we know exactly because some of them they had the Swedish stop battles for example. And you're having to do all of the voices of the people in the movie in virtually real time. Yeah yeah absolutely I had to do yes yes yeah but I wasn't I wasn't changing the voice to sound like a woman or like a man.

28:01It was a voiceover so you could hear also the actors and I would let them to be heard, you see. And from time to time, people said, but it's so difficult for you to say thank you or to say hello and something because I let you hear the real voice. I hate Bobby. You see, because it's totally a different moment for the actor who really played that film or the actor. if there was an english word you didn't understand how did you sort of handle that so there were two possibilities there were two possibilities first of all i could um i could look very quickly i had the dictionary i'll send you a picture to see it exactly how it looks like after so maybe that's because it's almost destroyed like that and i i had the ability to check for it in the dictionary while doing that very quickly because I was thinking maybe I'll have again this word and next time I'll manage better.

29:10If not, I'll invent something for the moment because, you know, for the films it's easier than for, I don't know, for a conference or something like that because you have also an image that could help you. You see, so it's a little bit easier but of course not traveling in an English-speaking language country, it was difficult. Because I learned my English, yes, of course, from the university and from films, but not travelling gets very difficult from time to time. And it's very easy to be wrong. But the idea was to make them understand what's happening in these films. You see, that was the main reason.

29:52Yeah. So what I've got here is a short example of Irina's voiceover. So this is an excerpt from Pretty Woman with Julia Roberts.

30:13It's incredible. I've listened to some of the soundtracks there and you do an amazing job there. I mean, what did you do around swear words and things like that that would come up? Of course, you know quite well that in any language, the first thing is to be somebody to tell you what the swear words were. Yeah, that's the same thing, of course. In Romania, and of course, everybody knew exactly what all these swear words were meaning. And of course, they were making jokes and so on, because I never translated them as so. I hate vulgar words, first of all. In my house, in my family, we are never swearing.

30:56They were always saying that this is just for the people with just the primary school maximum and so on, and from the people who couldn't read or write. But on the other hand, it was extremely important for me not to translate as so these words, That's because I knew already that in the communist prisons, the people there, the anti-communist people, were also punished by being sweared by the torturing in there. Or to put them, swear among themselves, or to swear the people who died in their family and so on. And I said, my voice is never going to be the voice of a torturing guy or girl or whatever of people.

31:52And that is one of the reasons. And they were still doing that in 1987 after the Brasov. You know, it was a riot in Brasov in 1987, so two years before the revolutions. And I discussed with people from there, with workers from there. you can imagine a hard worker from a factory in Brasov, you see. And he said, Madam, you know, they could make us not to sleep. They could beat us to blood. They could make us hungry and so on. But when they start swearing us, it was the worst thing ever. So that's one of the reasons I never swear. and I'd like so much to still be alive, to see a Romanian film with no swearing.