A year of filming in Catalonia

With all the major film award cer­e­monies like the Gaudís and the Goyas over, now is a good time to look back and re­view the films and TV se­ries filmed in Cat­alo­nia and re­leased in 2022.

It was prob­a­bly the best year for film in Cat­alo­nia for over a decade. Some 38 fea­ture films and 16 TV se­ries were re­leased in cin­e­mas and on dig­i­tal plat­forms, a sig­nif­i­cant enough fig­ure in it­self, but if we look at it from the point of view of rev­enue made or awards ob­tained, it is even more spec­tac­u­lar.

Of the 20 Cata­lan and Span­ish films that grossed the most in cin­e­mas, six were shot in Cat­alo­nia. In third place we find Los ren­glones tor­ci­dos de Dios, the adap­ta­tion of the novel of the same name by Tor­cu­ato Luca de Tena, with­out doubt the Span­ish thriller of the year. In­cluded in the film’s great achieve­ments are the two lo­ca­tions that make the psy­chi­atric hos­pi­tal of Nues­tra Señora de Fuente­cilla a suf­fo­cat­ing yet el­e­gant and at­trac­tive space. The im­pos­ing Taba­calera build­ing in Tar­rag­ona was the lo­ca­tion cho­sen to set the hos­pi­tal’s ex­te­ri­ors, and for the in­te­ri­ors it was the old Mer­cedes Benz fac­tory in the Bon Pas­tor neigh­bour­hood of Barcelona (closed since 2007).

An­other pro­duc­tion in the box of­fice top ten and which, in ad­di­tion, has al­ready won 24 awards, in­clud­ing five Goyas, is Mod­elo 77, a prison drama in­spired by the real es­cape of 45 in­mates from the now closed Barcelona prison in 1977. Al­though the in­te­rior shots of the prison (cells, gal­leries and base­ment) were recre­ated in a dis­used ar­tillery fac­tory in Seville, the real Model prison ap­pears in many of the se­quences, in­clud­ing the in­fa­mous riot with in­mates protest­ing on one of the roofs.

And what can we say about the phe­nom­e­non of the year, Al­carràs, win­ner of the pres­ti­gious Golden Bear of Berlin, Span­ish Film Acad­emy can­di­date for the Os­cars 2023 and win­ner of many Gaudí awards? Carla Simón’s film meant that a pro­duc­tion in the Cata­lan lan­guage was among the 10 high­est-gross­ing Span­ish films of the year, some­thing which has not oc­curred since 2011, with Pa negre by the de­ceased Agustí Vil­laronga. As many as nine Lleida towns ap­pear in the film: Mas­sal­cor­eig – where the Solé fam­ily farm­house is lo­cated – Al­carràs and Aitona, Soses, Ma­ials, Sucs, Bellvís, Mon­toliu de Lleida and Fraga.

Other fea­ture films en­joy­ing suc­cess in cin­e­mas were Mal­nazi­dos, a com­edy di­rected by Javier Ruiz Caldera and Al­berto de Toro, shot in Cata­lan towns, in­clud­ing Car­dona and Tavertet, and 42 se­gun­dos, the film that re­vives the his­tory of the Span­ish water polo team dur­ing the 1992 Barcelona Olympic Games. The Olympic fa­cil­i­ties on Mon­tjuïc, es­pe­cially the Bernat Pi­cor­nell swim­ming pools, shine with their own light in this epic and emo­tional film. In ad­di­tion, Barcelona was also the main stage for two come­dies, His­to­rias para no con­tar and Un novio para mi mujer, di­rected by Cesc Gay and Laura Mañá, re­spec­tively.

Other films re­leased last year in­cluded La ma­ter­nal and La vol­un­taria, shot in Barcelona and other towns in the met­ro­pol­i­tan area; Gi­ra­soles sil­vestres, the lat­est pro­duc­tion by Jaime Ros­ales, shot in Barcelona, Vallès and Maresme; Un año, una noche, the bril­liant true drama by Isaki Lacuesta, where Barcelona is trans­formed into se­quences in Paris, and Mikel Gur­rea’s debut film, Suro, a tense cou­ples drama shot in Em­pordà.

As for fea­ture films re­leased on plat­forms, it is worth high­light­ing A través de mi ven­tana, a youth­ful ro­man­tic com­edy, which was the fourth rank­ing non-Eng­lish-speak­ing film of the year in terms of hours of Net­flix view­ings world­wide. Shot in Barcelona and Maresme, its suc­cess led to a se­quel, al­ready filmed, which will pre­miere in 2023. An­other Net­flix hit was Cen­tauro. Barcelona and the Mo­tor­Land Aragón cir­cuit, in the Aragonese town of Alcañiz, are the main set­tings for this ac­tion film.

Break­ing local records, the US pro­duc­tion Un­charted had a bud­get of 120 mil­lion dol­lars and a world­wide gross of nearly 402 mil­lion dol­lars, rank­ing 13th world­wide. It is an ac­tion-ad­ven­ture film based on the video games of the same name, and stars Tom Hol­land, Mark Wahlberg, Sophia Ali and An­to­nio Ban­deras. The film re­volves around the search for a unique trea­sure, in which Barcelona plays a major role. The cen­tral part of the film is set in the city, with well-known set­tings such as Mon­tjuïc moun­tain, Plaça Sant Felip Neri, the basil­ica of Santa Maria del Pi and the Born Cen­tre de Cul­tura i Memòria. It is worth not­ing that Lloret de Mar is also one of the set­tings of the film. Specif­i­cally, Sa Boadella beach was trans­formed to be­come a beach in the Philip­pines.

FEA­TURE FILMS AND SE­RIES