20 Years of Albanian Dubs - The Retrospective

Written by AlbanianTelevisioner

It's been 20 years since the first ever known Albanian dub was ever produced. That is, the oldest known dub to be found, the Albanian dub of Snow White, named 'Borebardha' and produced by Top Channel. This dub revolutionized this previously unknown field of dubbing media in Albania. After Top Channel, came and went many dubbing studios, which dubbed hundreds, possibly even thousands of shows and movies in Albanian, such as, Albatrade (ALB@TRADE), "Jess" Discographic, AA Film Kompani, NGS Recording, Studio Onix, Studio Dodona, Dub Albania, Studio Suprem and Piko Studio. Some are more remembered than others, but some are often forgotten, and some are often remembered for bad. First, we need to talk in detail into how the dub of Snow White came into being.

Most people who grew up in the communist regime of Albania remembered shows and movies dubbed from Italian, that is people who had television sets and antennas powerful to catch them. Dubbing was not known in communist Albania, as was the airing of things produced by western countries. After the regime ended, the only channel in Albania, TVSH used to air shows and movies from western countries, but with subtitles. This wasn't a problem back then, as dubbing didn't seem like something that was needed, and it was costly to dub stuff in a different language, as you needed equipment to do so. So the dubbing part was mostly ignored until the year 2002, a year where Albanian media and television was at its infancy. Many Albanian channels were created and TVSH was no longer the most popular Albanian channel. However, now better than ever it seemed that things dubbed in Albanian were needed, since Albanian kids would learn foreign languages instead of their own. So that year, Top Channel, a channel known for being the first in everything, created its own dubbing studio, and they started first with dubbing Snow White, a well known classical Disney movie. 

People who were part of the Albanian cast recall the moment when they were waiting outside Top Channel's studio, in the sun waiting for the dub to be finished. Of course, the dub was eventually loved by Albanians who enjoyed hearing characters speaking their own language. After Snow White, a company named Albatrade, who distributed music from Albanian artists, decided to also get into the dubbing field, as they had the necessary equipment. So, Albatrade dubbed many classical movies, mostly from Disney and other known series like Tom & Jerry. Unfortunately, Albatrade met it's fate some years later and they eventually disappeared. But before this happened, "Jess" Discographic, another music company started dubbing, using music equipment. Their story starts around the year 2002, same as the first Albanian dub, but they only started dubbing in the year 2004, some of their dubs being Disney movies. However, a newly created company created by Top Media, the owners of Top Channel called Digitalb hired "Jess" Discographic to do dubs for them. Eventually this dubbing studio did not meet the same fate as Albatrade, as Digitalb's request list was in the hundreds. They dubbed so much shows and movies, that Digitalb hired another studio named NGS Recording to do dubs for them.