Júlia Goytisolo, director of the Barcelona-Catalunya Film Commission
"Barcelona is a modern and cosmopolitan city
where very different movies can be filmed"
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As we have explained on the article Barcelona Film Set, the Catalan capital is highly atractive for many international filmmakers in order to shoot their movies there. But who manages all these projects? Júlia Goytisolo is the director of the Barcelona-Catalunya Film Commission, organism that hands out filming permits in Catalonia. She says that “Barcelona has become a local, national and international reference as film set. Since 1996 Barcelona Plató (nowadays Barcelona-Catalonia Film Commission) was created and the city has worked on organizing and managing films’ shootings, as well as promoting Barcelona as a film set.” She also highlights that the Catalan capital “has always been attractive, in the International market, because it’s a modern and cosmopolitan city where very different movies can be filmed. Vicky Cristina Barcelona and Biutiful have been made not only in the same city, but have also shared several locations.”
According to the Commission’s director, “Catalonia has a very powerful audiovisual industry for all kind of productions. Catalan landscapes are diverse, from the Monastery of Montserrat to the Romanic city of Tarragona, from the Jewish Quarter of Girona to Catalan coastal beaches, from natural parks such as Empordà to the Medes Islands. Catalonia also has a nice climate, with more than 300 sunny days per year (10 hours of light in winter and 17 in summer). Finally, the Catalan territory has become a film set in demand because of the facilities that the place offers to accommodate productions.”
What about topics and stereotypes? Júlia Goytisolo thinks that “many movies filmed in Barcelona or other places can fall into the same topics of each area. But cinema is fiction and a place can be shown in several ways. It’s not the same Woody Allen’s Les Rambles, full of light, colour and life, or the marginal vision of Iñárritu in Biutiful. But in general Barcelona does not appear like the typical Spanish city, with bulls and flamenco.” She added that the favourite places to shoot in are Ciutat Vella, Sant Martí and the Eixample, as well as gardens, beaches and parks like Ciutadella.
Unfortunately, crisis leaves its mark. Asked about how film shooting has increased in these years, Júlia says that the crisis factor seems to have led to a slightly decrease in the total amount of big feature films. This current economic crisis has slowed down the growth of Barcelona as a film set over the past four years, although it has not stopped. She assures that Barcelona Film Set is going to last a long time.
