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How to contribute
Making subtitles takes a film you are allowed to subtitle, a free subtitle editor, and some patience. This is the whole process, from choosing a film to seeing your name in the credits.
In short
- Only subtitle films in the public domain, under an open licence, or with the rights holder's permission. Which films can be subtitled
- Use a free subtitle editor such as Subtitle Edit or Aegisub, and save your work as an SRT file.1,2
- A second person reviews every file before it is published.
- Your subtitles are published under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence, with your name in the credits.3
Last checked: 17 October 2026
Translating a film into Georgian
- Choose a film. Start with one of the open projects, or suggest another film that is openly licensed.
- Get the existing subtitles. Translating subtitles that are already timed is much quicker than timing a film from scratch. Tears of Steel, for example, has official English subtitle files.4
- Translate in a subtitle editor. Open the film and the subtitle file together, keep the timing, and replace the text line by line.
- Follow the style guide. Short lines, natural Georgian, the right quotation marks. Georgian subtitles
- Check the file. The subtitle checker finds lines that are too long, subtitles that go by too fast, and timing errors.
- Watch the whole film once with your subtitles, from start to finish, as a viewer would.
- Send the file through the upload form.
Translating a Georgian film into English
The steps are the same, with two differences.
- Permission comes first. Most Georgian films are still under copyright, so their rights holder has to agree before English subtitles can be shared. A letter template is ready to use.
- Names and culture need care. Use the national romanization system for names, and plain English for everything else. English subtitles
The obvious place to start is GNFC Heritage: 36 restored Georgian films from the 1920s and 1930s that the Georgian National Film Center streams free of charge.5 Many are silent films, and some restorations already have English intertitles,6 so the first step is to find the films that still need them.
Working in pairs
Every file has a translator and a reviewer. The reviewer reads the subtitles while watching the film and checks three things: the meaning is right, the language is natural, and the timing works.
For English subtitles, a native English speaker can do the final polish once a Georgian speaker has checked the meaning. If you speak English but are still learning Georgian, this is a good way to help.
Tools
| Tool | What it is for |
|---|---|
| Subtitle Edit | A free, open-source subtitle editor with video playback, for Windows and Linux.1 |
| Aegisub | A free, open-source subtitle editor for Windows, macOS and Linux.2 |
| Subtitle checker | This site's checker: timing, line length and reading speed, plus a converter for old Georgian fonts. Runs in your browser; the file is not uploaded. |
Credit and licence
Each published file lists its translator and reviewer, by name or by a nickname of your choice.
Subtitles are published under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 (CC BY-SA 4.0). Anyone may use, share and adapt them, as long as they credit you and share their changes under the same licence.3 By sending a file, you agree to publish it under this licence.
Other ways to help
- Wikimedia Commons. Videos on Commons can get subtitles in any language, added straight from the browser. Videos that need them are marked “Captions requested”.7
- TED Translators. A global community of volunteers who subtitle TED Talks, in over 100 languages.8
- Review. If you would rather check than translate, write to translation@foundation.ge.
Where this information comes from
- Nikolaj Olsson and contributors. Subtitle Edit: free, open-source subtitle editor (MIT licence), with builds for Windows and Linux.
- Aegisub: free, open-source subtitle editor for Windows, macOS and Linux (source code).
- Creative Commons. Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0); legal code, Section 1: "Adapted Material" includes translations.
- Blender Foundation. "Tears of Steel: Download" (film and subtitle files).
- Georgian National Film Center. GNFC Heritage: film list (36 films, October 2026) and FAQ.
- National Archives of Georgia (22 May 2026). "The Cinema Hall of the National Archives of Georgia is hosting a retrospective of Georgian silent cinema": restored films shown with intertitles in Georgian and English.
- Wikimedia Commons. "Commons:Timed Text."
- TED. "TED Translators."