22/12/2005

If it’s Europe’s China because of its amazing growth, it’s also a gate to Latin America because of its geographical position and linguistic affinities. Before adopting the European Co-production Convention in 1997, Spain already had co-production agreements with most Latin American countries. Nowadays, Spain is an attractive country to most of the world’s producers. Unfortunately, the 500% of the increase in the number of co-productions with European countries is not the result of promotion policies. In fact, the European legislation that makes all EU citizens equal in front of the national institutions leaves Spain’s regulations and every producer asking the question: What are co-production conventions for?

To clarify this and other aspects, we must make a distinction between:

1. Co-productions with countries not belonging to the EU, or which do not have a co-production convention with Spain.
These co-productions may obtain Spanish nationality and apply for the above mentioned subsidies if they comply with one of these conditions:
- At least 75% of the team must be Spanish or an EU citizen (is a must for the authors), the film must be filmed in Spain or the EU and in one of Spain’s official languages.
This means that, for instance, the filmed can be shot in Spain and be a co-production with the USA ( up to 30%), without there being any convention or legal regulation.

2. Co-productions with EU countries or other countries that hold a convention with Spain.
These are strictly regulated by the European Convention or bilateral agreements, where conditions normally are:
- For bilateral agreements; the minor producer’s participation cannot account for less than 20%, while the main producer’s cannot account for more than 80%, only allowing co-productions with real creative participation.
- For multilateral agreements, where the European or Ibero American Conventions are applied; the minor producer’s participation cannot account for less than 10%, while the main producers cannot exceed 70%. In this last case, certain financial co-productions are permitted.