ESPAÑA DE CINE in Valencia:
Everybody knows how much The Lord of the Rings has done to promote and increase tourism in NewZealand; this kind of cinema tourism, or set-jetting, has a ripe, largely under-exploited potential market in Spain, and so ESPAÑA DE CINE was created to fill the gap.
Following two successful events in the provinces of Cuenca and Guadalajara, provinces that now have packages especially prepared for tourists after the collaboration between ESPAÑA DE CINE and local tour operators, this non-profit making organisation turned its sights to Valencia, where films such as ‘Tomorrowland’ starring George Clooney and Hugh Laurie, or ‘The Curse of the Pink Panther’ have been made, without forgetting El Cid, shot in Peñiscola or The Return of the Seven, when Yul Brynner and his six compadres outgunned the baddies in the village of Agost, Alicante.
Furthermore, Valencia is a city intimately related with Hemingway, who spent more time here than in Pamplona. He started his first novel, The Sun Also Rises in Valencia’s Hotel Reina Victoria, and two films, one based on his unfinished novel ‘The Garden of Eden’ and another starring a character who comes to Valencia in search of Hemingway’s spirit; ‘My Bakery in Brooklyn’ were both filmed in Valencia.
Valencia even has a hotel dedicated to the cinema, the Casual Valencia del Cine, where guests are surrounded by visual references to the 7th art.
VALENCIA DE CINE took place on Saturday 3rd June 2017 at a recently re-opened cinema, the Alba-Texas, Plaça de Fra Lluís Colomer, 4.
A series of speakers, all experts in their fields, delighted a select audience.
They were
Fernando Valencia, from the publishing company ‘Obrapropia;’ who produces and presents a programme about the cinema each week on Wednesday a 5 pm on QUE Radio Valencia. Fernando talked about Spanish directors who have worked on international projects such as Amenábar, Mateo Gil or Nacho Vigalondo.
Bernardo Carrión: has been a journalist for over 20 years and is the director of the film festival dedicated to the Film Noir genre, VLC NEGRA. He is also a novelist, having published recently ‘Sinpiedad’, a thriller set in Valencia Valencia. He talked about the VLC NEGRA festival.
Vicent Tamarit is a director, scriptwriter and producer and has worked on many international films. He posed the question if shooting in the Valencia Community is always a positive experience.
Ramón Alfonso is a writer and historian and has published books about Quentin Tarantino and Dario Argento. He directs Valencia’s Paura Festival dedicated to horror films, and spoke about the festival.
Juan Ángel Saiz Jiménez is a professor at the Universitat Politècnica de València. He publishes and restores soundtracks, teaches courses related to the cinema and is a radio presenter specialising in cinema and cinema music. He talked about filming in the Valencia Community.
Samuel Sebastian is a film director and teacher He has his own production Company, GAMANprod. His talk involved re-imagining a Mediterranean city.
Bob Yareham, president of ‘España de Cine’ and author of ‘Movies Made in Spain’ a project and web site about over 900 English language films and TV series filmed in Spain www.moviesmadeinspain.com opened a debate on whether Valencia could or should be a cinema city.
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