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Interview
8 January 2023 2.00 h

MIQUEL RUTLLANT

PRESIDENT OF THE AUDIOVISUAL CLUSTER OF CATALONIA

“Now is a great time for the audiovisual sector”

Miquel Rut­l­lant (Barcelona, 1968) chairs the Au­dio­vi­sual Clus­ter of Cat­alo­nia, an or­gan­i­sa­tion that rep­re­sents a sec­tor that em­ploys some 31,000 peo­ple and that has a turnover of 6.7 bil­lion euros.

How many com­pa­nies does the Au­dio­vi­sual Clus­ter of Cat­alo­nia rep­re­sent?
More than 160 com­pa­nies, but more im­por­tantly we rep­re­sent the whole au­dio­vi­sual sec­tor. That used to mean film, tele­vi­sion and TV ad­ver­tis­ing, but today it in­cludes video games, mu­seum ap­pli­ca­tions, health, ed­u­ca­tion, cor­po­rate com­mu­ni­ca­tion...
Which areas of the in­dus­try are the most im­por­tant today?
De­spite the un­cer­tain eco­nomic con­text, there is grow­ing de­mand for au­dio­vi­sual con­tent, and the areas with the most growth prospects are video games, im­mer­sive con­tent and e-sports.
Is now a good time for the sec­tor?
It’s a great time for the au­dio­vi­sual sec­tor, and op­ti­mism is high. There are plenty of pro­jects un­der­way, there is good qual­ity work avail­able and we have been ex­pe­ri­enc­ing a dy­namic of growth for some time in all areas.
What are your pri­or­i­ties?
Our main con­cern is that as much pro­duc­tion as pos­si­ble takes place in Cat­alo­nia. The au­dio­vi­sual sec­tor here is a very com­plete ecosys­tem that cov­ers all areas, in­clud­ing im­por­tant pro­duc­tion com­pa­nies such as Fil­max or Di­ag­o­nal TV. But we also have post-pro­duc­tion com­pa­nies such as An­ta­viana. We also have both tech­ni­cal and cre­ative tal­ent. What we need is more in­fra­struc­ture. We have the Au­dio­vi­sual Park of Cat­alo­nia, in Ter­rassa, but we need more. We also need higher tech­no­log­i­cal ca­pac­ity. Tech­nol­ogy al­lows us to pro­duce more ef­fi­ciently and so it is very im­por­tant that tech­nol­ogy is within the reach of this in­dus­try. We also need data cen­tres with the com­put­ing ca­pac­ity to gen­er­ate, edit and run all of the con­tent. An­other tool used in other places to at­tract au­dio­vi­sual pro­duc­tion is tax­a­tion, but Cat­alo­nia does not have the nec­es­sary pow­ers in this area. We need the state gov­ern­ment to come up with a new fis­cal frame­work, oth­er­wise it is hard to com­pete with other places that offer more at­trac­tive tax con­di­tion.
Do you call for pub­lic in­vest­ment?
I be­lieve there must be pub­lic-pri­vate col­lab­o­ra­tion, and we must work in the most co­or­di­nated and con­sen­sual way pos­si­ble. We are work­ing with the Cata­lan gov­ern­ment and sev­eral mu­nic­i­pal­i­ties to set up au­dio­vi­sual parks around the coun­try. To be com­pet­i­tive, it’s im­por­tant to at­tract the in­ter­na­tional au­dio­vi­sual sec­tor, both in­di­vid­ual tal­ent and com­pa­nies.
You men­tion local tal­ent, but aren’t we los­ing tal­ent?
There is a tal­ent drain as we gen­er­ate more here than can be ab­sorbed by the Cata­lan in­dus­try. We want to re­verse this. We also want to bring back the tal­ent that has left, and at­tract in­ter­na­tional tal­ent.
How im­por­tant is work­ing with in­ter­na­tional com­pa­nies from here?
It helps a lot if we’re con­nected. That’s why we need more firms in the areas of spe­cial ef­fects, post-pro­duc­tion, im­mer­sive­ness... We need to group to­gether in hubs to share in­fra­struc­ture, and for these hubs to be con­nected to the rest of the world’s hubs. This is the way to be on the world au­dio­vi­sual map today.

in­ter­view media

A strategic vision

Rutllant is a telecommunications engineer with an MA in business administration. “Being an engineer shapes what I think, but I’ve also been in management for 30 years,” he says. He has held various positions of responsibility in firms in the audiovisual sector, such as TVC Multimèdia and Vértice 360. Since 2012 he has headed the Lavinia Group and has chaired the Audiovisual Cluster of Catalonia since 2017. Set up in 2013, the cluster represents 160 companies and institutions in the audiovisual sector, including film, television, advertising and video game producers. The organisation’s goal is to turn the audiovisual industry into a strategic sector.

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