26/04/2016 - Ramón Colom, president of the Confederation of Spanish Audiovisual Producers, gave a positive assessment of Spanish film over the last 25 years during his rendezvous with the Málaga Film Festival

Ramón Colom next to festival director Juan Antonio Vigar and Marta Velasco, of the Association of Andalusian Audiovisual Production Companies (AEPAA-APRIA) (© Pipo Fernández)

This month, FAPAE (the Confederation of Spanish Audiovisual Producers) celebrates 25 years since it was founded, and its president, Ramón Colom, is over the moon – not only because of this milestone, but also because of how well the Spanish film industry has done during this period. For this occasion, as has become the norm, he convened the accredited members of the press at the Málaga Film Festival and dished out a plethora of figures while at the same time outlining his objectives for the future. Among the mass of encouraging data given out, it is worth pointing out that the number of active production companies in Spain has shot up from 55 in 1991 to 276 currently, while international sales of Spanish movies have doubled over the same period (reaching €56 million in 2015), and the total number of co-productions with other countries has tripled, with the most regular partners being France (30%), Argentina (21%) and Italy (13%).

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Spanish audiences have also fallen more deeply in love with their country’s films: the 9.1 million viewers in 1991 skyrocketed to 18 million in 2015, and the 10.9% market share seen three decades ago actually reached 19% last year. At foreign festivals, even though Spanish involvement has plummeted by 36.7%, a total of 474 international awards have been reaped, which is equivalent to an increase of 803%. However, the average cost of a movie has decreased, falling from the €3 million that was usual five years ago to €1.8 million per film, despite the fact that 75 Spanish titles exceeded the one-million-viewer mark during the last 25 years.

At this juncture in 2016, FAPAE provided figures for the year so far: 38 shoots and theatrical box-office takings of €36 million, almost double the number seen at this point a year ago, with a market share of 19.3%. An example of a very successful film is Toro [+see also:
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film profile], which this weekend climbed to second place in the top ten at the box office. Standing out among the many comments and opinions delivered by Colom at the function was the following: “There cannot only be mainstream cinema, but there must also be movies that take risks; film and television must be governed by the economic rationale of the audiovisual industry and not that of the financial industry; and we want to separate ourselves from the national budget: as is the case in France and Italy, film has to be funded with film – in this way it will remain in our hands and be up to us.”

(Translated from Spanish)