Benidorm Film Office implements measures to facilitate filming for production companies that comply with the SDGs
Benidorm returns to pre-pandemic filming figures and is committed to favoring sustainable productions
Benidorm has exhibited for another year at the Madrid International Tourism Fair (Fitur) its offer as a destination for audiovisual productions. As in previous editions, the mayor, Toni Pérez, has taken advantage of Benidorm's presence at Fitur Screen to take stock of the activity of Benidorm Film Office, which has closed 2022 with pre-pandemic figures. In fact, he has pointed out, "we even exceed the data from the last year prior to the pandemic", with "118 productions" and "364 days of effective shooting".
The mayor indicated that these "strong data", which "would like any other destination", show "the position of Benidorm as a film set", and allow "to take pride in the extraordinary work carried out in the last decade by the Benidorm Film Office and its coordinator, Rosa Llorca, and in which different municipal departments participate”.
Toni Pérez stressed that in addition to the "fantastic and unique locations" in Benidorm, the shooting figures are also the result of "the facilities that we give to the production companies" so that they can carry out their projects in Benidorm; and he anticipated that in 2023 Benidorm Film Office is committed to "facilitating sustainable filming".
As he explained, the trend in the audiovisual sector is precise to promote sustainable filming and that is why "we want to go further, providing them with the resources we have and involving the productions in our story of city and destination in favor of sustainability ”.
In this regard, the coordinator of the Film Office explained that "for years" they have been working to promote sustainable filming in the surroundings of Serra Gelada Natural Park, a point chosen by 54% of the productions.
Now "we are going to delve" into this work that in Serra Gelada has been carried out "with the Natural Park and the technicians of the Department of the Environment" and to "extend it to the entire municipal area".
To this end, a 'Sustainable Filming' section has already been created on Benidorm Film Office website, which includes "a series of recommendations" for producers so that their work is in line with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). ), and in which also "we are already including information and municipal resources to facilitate this task"; information and resources that will be progressively expanded.
Thus, a map has been published with all the charging points for electric vehicles installed on public roads and whose use is free for users; At the same time, proposals and recommendations related to waste separation, use of ecological or less polluting vehicles, or choice of accommodation close to the filming locations have been included.
In addition, Toni Pérez has advanced that "in this task of promoting sustainable filming, we are going to promote a course aimed at people from Benidorm and the region to train them as 'green controller' or 'eco manager', a new professional figure in charge of facilitating and supervising compliance with sustainability criteria in filming”.
With the training of this personnel, Llorca explained, "we make it easier for producers who have everything in Benidorm, who do not have the need to bring a 'green controller' with them because in our city they will be able to hire one".
This staff will join the list of professionals that the Film Office makes available to the production companies and with whom "we generate synergies with the audiovisual sector in the area and with the productive fabric of Benidorm".
Producciones de 2022 y perspectivas para 2023
The mayor anticipated that "2023 begins in the same way that 2022 did, with the Benidorm Fest and all the audiovisual activity around the event", which is also going to translate into "a lot of presence in the media" and "great national and international repercussion.
Already last year, on the occasion of Benidorm Fest, the city hosted part of the weekly programming of RTVE with news programs, La Gran Consulta, España Directo, or Corazón, Corazón. Reports from Aquí la Tierra or Reduce your footprint were also recorded, which have had a great impact and which showed the most sustainable Benidorm. Telepasión 2022, with Quico Taronji and Alaska singing from La Cruz, Levante beach, or the town hall, put the television finishing touch to the year.
Entertainment programs from various European countries and the Belgian series "The Club" also landed in Benidorm, all of them managed with Visit Benidorm given the extraordinary promotion they represent for the destination in those countries. In fiction, the city was the scene of a chapter of 'Por H o por B' and sequences of 'La Ruta'; without forgetting the 'shorts' awarded in Benidorm Skyline Film Festival Shortpitch contest: Jerusalem by Jaibo Films and Long Journey, by Kabiria FIlms. Extraordinary results have also been achieved by the sequences of a Bollywood film that has close to 5 million views.
Finally, in 2022, big brands that have found the ideal setting to display their products in the Benidorm locations. This is the case of ZARA, Lacoste, BMW, GEOX or American Tourister.
In total, in 2022 Benidorm hosted 45 television programs -between documentaries, entertainment and news-, five series, four short films, three music videos, three shorts and 59 advertising projects. Most of these productions, 89 specifically, are Spanish; although there has been an increase in projects from the United Kingdom, from where 15 have come. The rest of the productions bear the signature of Germany, Belgium, France, Italy, India and the USA.
