A community event this weekend hosted by the Central Florida-based Alianza Center aims to help share the magic of cinema with multilingual families. The Hispanic and Puerto Rican-focused advocacy group is teaming up with TheaterEars, the company behind an app that syncs the Spanish language version of a movie to an English language screening in real time.
This allows a multilingual family or a person who prefers Spanish to attend a movie screening presented in English and have the same experience, through the TheaterEars app and a pair of earbuds.
A (multilingual) Minecraft Movie
This weekend’s film is A Minecraft Movie at AMC Disney Springs 24. TheaterEars CEO Dan Mangru, a longtime Florida resident, said he’ll be there to witness multilingual moviegoers experiencing the cinema together.
Mangru said connecting people is what really drives the app. “When you think of the great experiences that we have in American society, it’s going to the movie theaters. It's an event, it's community. So what TheaterEars really does is it gives people the ability to have shared experiences with others that they can then talk about and relate to and create memories with.”
Fulfilling a need
Mangru said the app’s creation was inspired by a friend’s desire to include a Spanish-speaking family member in multigenerational movie outings. His wife is Colombian and his children always wanted to bring their maternal grandmother to the movies, too, but her English wasn’t fluent.
The kids’ disappointment from being unable to share their favorite movie moments with their grandmother made Mangru recognize the need on a larger scale.
And the movie industry quickly recognized it, too. Now, people can use TheaterEars at any movie theater in the United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico, with the fully produced Spanish-language movie dub supplied straight from the movie studios themselves.
Mangru said he loves attending community screening events like Orlando’s to see first-hand how the app facilitates communication in more than just the movie theater, and how it can even cause positive ripple effects in people’s lives.
“People will say, ‘Hey, I wanted to thank you guys, because I wanted to ask this person out on a date but they didn’t speak English too well, and so I showed them the TheaterEars app and we went on our first date to go to the movies!’ And we have people write and say, ‘Hey, we got engaged after going to the movies and becoming closer with your app,’” said Mangru.
