16/03/2005

Interview with Manuel Soria Managing Director, Madrid Film Commission

Madrid is a great cinema studio, of feature films, advertising, video clips, TV series and TV programmes. With slightly more than a year of life Madrid Film tries to promote this reality beyond the Spanish borders . An Interview with Manuel Soria Managing Director of the the Madrid Film Commission.

Cineuropa:What assessment do you make of this first year of activity?
Manuel Soria: Highly positive. The city and the Community of Madrid include fantastic locations and incredible human and technical resources for the shooting of all kinds of audiovisual productions. We thought that it was very necessary that the Madrid Film Commission should make an effort to promote this fact outside our borders facilitating all kinds of services that could attract potential co producers to our region. Therefore among all the positive results of our activity I would emphasize the approach to our European partners and the signature of the agreements with Île de FranceBerlin-Brandenburg and Lazio that will be of essential importance not only for the participating regions, but also for the audiovisual production of France, Germany, Italy and Spain. In a moment in which co production is articulated as an essential mechanism of film financing, we believe that we are still under the real co production possibilities. For example in 2004, 13 co productions were made between Spain and France, 2 between Spain and Germany and 11 between Spain and Italy. Nevertheless, MFC has already participated in 25 features, 12 short films, ten TV series, a TV movie, and four documentaries.

How do you intend to attract more international co productions and to promote interregional cooperation?
We believe that our first effort must be placed in approaching potential co producers, enabling them to get to know themselves. We are also thinking about reinforcing relations among distributors to help our products transcend our borders. In this field, is it very useful to remember how in 2003, 19 Spanish productions or co-productions were exhibited in French cinemas, that 36 Spanish productions or co-productions were exhibited in French festivals and 57 in the French television networks. The French features qualified in Spain in 2003 were 37, the same than the previous year and seven less than in 2001. These figures give us an idea of the work that remains to be done. Besides, agile mechanisms will be established to exchange information on projects which might be interesting for our partners and of course we will provide information about local production services or the dealing out administrative requirements. Since the announcement of the firm in agreement, various Spanish producers with on going projects such Alfilms with Corre Cariño, Urbana Films with Afectos, and Imval with Buñuel en la Memoria ,have already got in touch with the MFC to ask about co production possibilities with France.

Madrid Film has sought associates with an important participation in the film production of its respective countries, what will be the contribution of Madrid to this partnership?
The Community of Madrid counts with a solid audiovisual structure, qualified and specialized to guarantee so much foreign as national productions. These high level of production and post production services, determine that around 70% of the Spanish production is done in Madrid. Besides, so much the city as the Community of Madrid are infinite sources of locating of outsides, and interiors, to set any type of audiovisual production. Furthermore, the network of transport and media link Madrid with the rest of the world. We are going to utilize all these factors to fortify and to promote the audiovisual industry in Madrid.