28/09/2005

The Barcelona Plató Film Commission, has just presented a report of activities for the first semester of the year, a highly positive report showing that the number of film shoots in the capital of Catalonia has increased to 295, compared to 267 in 2004. Among the 295 shoots that took place between January and August 2005, 33 are feature films (20 for theatres, 13 for TV), 45 are documentaries and 65 are TVproductions.

After the local producers, European companies are the major users of the Barcelona Plató Film Comisión. Until the 31st of august, 76 foreign productions used the services of the ICUB (Instituto de Cultura del Ayuntamiento de Barcelona) in order to coordinate their shoots in the city. Among them 20 were from the UK and 9 from Germany.

Through the years, the Barcelona Plató Film Commission took part in the shoots forseveral international hits such as Cédric Klapisch's L'Auberge Espagnol and Pedro Almodóvar's All about my mother, but 2005 is, no doubt, its best year with Barcelona hosting the shoots for some eagerly-awaited European titles such as I>Salvador [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] et The Perfume. Directed by Manuel Huerga, Salvador is a Media Pro production, focused on the life of anarchist Salvador Puig Antixh, murdered in 1974. The photography for the film, which has Daniel Brühl in the lead part, started in July and took in some of the most emblematic places of Barcelona, like the Gran Via, where the battles beween police and protesters has been recreated. The German (Constantin Film Produktion) and Spanish (Castelao Productions) co-production, The Parfume [+see also:
trailer
film profile], directed by Tom Tykwer (Run, Lola, Run) chose the gothic neighbourhood of Barcelona to recreate Paris in the XVIII century, where psychopath Jean-Baptiste Grenouille (played by British actor Ben Whishaw) commited his crimes. The casting of this adaptation of Patrick Süskind's best seller includes other important names such as Dustin Hoffman and Alan Rickman.

Among the other titles who will fim there areMireia Ros's El Triunfo and Joaquín Oristrell's Nadie es perfecto, while the photography of Bigas Luna's new film Yo soy la Juani (produced by Media Films and El Virgili Films) is still being prepared. Four years after Son de mar the filmmaker is back with a project about "suburban glamour".