This article intends to provide a basis for researching problems involved in the process of film adaptation. The author insists on the fact that the language transfer involved in the practice of translating, viz. dubbing and adapting a foreign film into another language, represents not only a technical activity of synchronization but also and above all a process of cultural and linguistic mediation. She argues that an adaptation that 'works' should inevitably consider the socio-cultural context in which the film has been set and produced because it conveys values and references linked to the culture of origin that would be lost in the transposition into another language. To illustrate this, the article presents a comparative account of the original and dubbed versions of the American film Fargo.