After nearly 80 years, the actors in this film have finally been understood

The Robert Medley-painted poster for Bitter Springs, released in 1950. (Supplied: Studio Canal)

An anthropologist, a linguistic expert and First Nations language speakers have collaborated to subtitle previously untranslated segments of the film Bitter Springs.

More than 100 Aboriginal actors were employed for the film, which was shot in the South Australian outback town of Quorn in 1949.

The translators are hoping to screen the documentary and translated version at future film festivals.

In 1949, more than 100 Indigenous people were hired for the feature film Bitter Springs under somewhat peculiar circumstances.

For one, none of them had ever acted before; for another, they had to make up their own dialogue in one of the first films to tell the story of Aboriginal land theft and displacement.

But despite the odds, the film was filled with scenes of the Anangu actors' improvised work. It received moderately positive reviews, with several lauding the debutants despite not understanding what they were saying.

WARNING: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are warned that this story includes images of Indigenous people who have died.

The Anangu actors from the remote north-west of South Australia had spoken every single improvised line in Pitjantjatjara.

And for nearly 80 years, their words have remained more set-dressing for English speakers than part of the story, until now.

In Bitter Springs, a pioneer family comes into conflict with an Aboriginal tribe over land rights. (Supplied: Studio Canal)

Linguists, together with First Nations people from the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara (APY) Lands, have collaborated to subtitle the film, and are hoping to screen the documentary and translated version at future film festivals.

Throughout May, Bitter Springs in Translation, a 30-minute documentary about the film, was screened each night on the Quorn Silo, in South Australia's Flinders Ranges, as part of the state's history festival.

The screening took the film full circle back to where it was all shot, starting in May 1949 when a cast and crew of 40 arrived in the small town to make the movie in the nearby Warren Gorge.

They were joined later by 130 Anangu people, who had travelled two days by train to arrive in Quorn, where the crew had erected tents to house them for the duration of the shoot.

An interpreter from the Ooldea mission, where they were living, came with them. None spoke fluent English.

Margaret Brady, a social anthropologist and honorary associate professor at Australian National University, was the driving force beh