Spain and USA strengthen bonds to expand Hollywoods borders.

11/08/2019

Los Angeles (USA), 7th November (EFE).- Every time more, Hollywod’s powerful machinery goes out of the USA to search new settings for their shootings, and this makes Spain an option to be taken in account because of its landscape richness, modern infrastructures and its language as main advantages.

 With this aim, Los Angeles receives this week the first meeting “Shooting in Spain”, a forum where professionals from both countries will gather with the main North American producing companies (HBO and Netflix, among them) to analyse why they should choose Spain as a shooting destination.

“Spain is a well-known and respected country. It has a very popular characteristic: its diversity. But we want to go one step beyond: its infrastructures are very modern, and this makes it a very competitive country”, as Carlos Rosado (president of Spain Film Commission) highlighted.

SPAIN, SHOOINTG PREFERRED PARTNER OF THE USA

Rosado, through Spain Film Commission, devised this encounter, which counts with the “essential momentum” of James Costos, who was USA ambassador in Spain during the administration of Barack Obama (2009-2017) and now resides in Los Angeles but he is still aimed to strengthen cinema ties between both countries.

“We pursue to be a preferred partner of USA in Europe, where there are geopolitical phenomena like the “Brexit” in the United Kingdom that could shift paradigms and impulse Spain. It’s the appropriate time”, as Rosado analysed before adding the strength of the Spanish language as one of Spain’s assets.

“Spanish is spoken in many forums, let’s see what happens in the Oscars…”, identified as a reference after the last ceremony, where Spanish was heard in many occasions.

DIVERSITY, LANGUAGE, INFRASTRUCTURE AND… PRICES

To the landscape diversity, modern infrastructures and the language – assets that are highly valued in the USA -, Rosado adds some more: professional qualification and the prices.

“In Spain there is a well-made price structure and we are working on new tax incentives that make shooting in Spain even more interesting, so we can compete with other countries that are also using tax policies to attract more shootings”, as he explained.

According to the data given by APPA (Producer’s Association), the economic resources generated by the shootings reaches 646 million euros every year, and other 457 million euros by advertisement shootings.

“BEYOND MADRID AND BARCELONA”

For this reason, cinema offices in Andalusia, Aragon, Canary Islands, Mallorca, Valladolid and Valencia will share with Hollywood magnates their projects and main attractions to impulse shooting in their territories.

 “North American industry doesn’t go to shoot only to one place, it goes to many places – Rosado assured-. Very competitive audio visual sectors appeared in other Spanish cities, beyond Madrid and Barcelona”.

“Game of Thrones” shootings in emblematic spots of the Cantabria coast, the interest by great productions for cities like Seville or Malaga or for Segovia and Salamanca’s heritage are just examples of the growing attractive of Spain besides its two main cities, as Javier Rodríguez Mañas (Councilman of Spanish Tourism in Los Angeles) remarked.

“Cinema industry boosts tourism and its advantages can be noticed in middle term”, as he explained during the opening event.

Among the North American companies we can find: The Walt Disney Company, HBO, Netflix, Paramount, Lionsgate Entertainment, Amazon Studios and the NBC and CBS studios.

On the Spanish side, the producing companies Secuoya and Mediapro support this encounter together with ICEX Invest in Spain, TurEspaña and SETUR, besides of counting with Agencia EFE as media partner and Hispanic reference for information in the USA and the rest of America.

In addition to these entities, other Spanish producing companies will join: Able&Baker, Babieka Producer,  Babieka Producer y Profilms,  Cienfuegos Producciones, Danidogfilms, El Ranchito,  Entropy Studio, Euromedia, Fresco Films, Irusoin, La Caña Brothers, La Claqueta, La Panda, Maestranza Films, Mediapro, Meñakoz Films, Morena Films, Moriarti, Palma Pictures, Producciones Transatlánticas, Secuoya, Seven Islands Films,Tarkemoto Films and Wise Blue Studios.

Spain and USA strengthen bonds to expand Hollywoods borders.
Spain and USA strengthen bonds to expand Hollywoods borders.