www.lionsdailynews.com friday, june 24 , 2011

On top of that, the island’s dramatic, lunar look is currently
playing host to the set of Clash Of The Titans II. “Although perhaps
Tenerife is best known among the advertising community
as a great place to shoot cars, we also attract plenty of other
product categories,” Diaz says. “Recently Nestea shot a campaign
here for Germany, National Geographic and also Samsung
have recently shot a spot. Generally, business has been very
good so far this year, with 36 productions up to the end of March.”
Newly appointed Maltese film commissioner Peter Busuttil
reports that the island has been having an excellent 2011
with, among other major productions, the whole of the HBO
series Game Of Thrones being filmed on Malta and in Ireland.
“We have also recently welcomed several Italian TV movies
and series, as well as The Last Romans, which was a Russian
production, plus generally we are seeing more productions from
India,” he says. “The latter is not yet a question of big Bollywoodtype
projects but that sort of thing is of course what we are aiming
to attract here, after several interesting but lower-budget
productions used the island.”
After a total of 297 filming days in 2010, there have been
more than 200 already this year. “We have Sky TV filming the
13-part series Sinbad at the moment, and they’ll be here until
2012,” Busuttil says. “And Brad Pitt’s new feature film, World
War Z, will be shooting here imminently. Malta has so many
amazing locations, but one aspect that I think people overlook is
that this is a great place to be when you’re not on set. The cast of
Game Of Thrones were here for long periods and I know they
were perfectly happy to stay on the island when they weren’t
needed on set, because there are so many ways to relax and have
a good time here.”
That said, Busuttil is aware of the island’s limitations in
other areas: “We still have room for improvement in plenty of
ways. Although we have the infinite-horizon water tanks, we
still need a proper sound stage in order to be able to provide
everything that a movie needs. We know what needs doing and
FOCUS ON SOUTHERN EUROPE 53
“GIVEN THE FACT THAT A LOT OF THE
LOCAL BUSINESS HAS COLLAPSED ... WE
HAVE BECOME ‘A PRODUCTION
COMPANY BASED IN ITALY’”
Karim Bartoletti, Filmmaster
what needs to be improved to take the island and the film commission
office to the next level. We have a strong base to build
on from what was done previously, but I intend to further improve
our offer.”
Recent shoots in Malta include a spot for MasterCard, a
six-day shoot for French Connection UK and a spot for Italian
tuna brand Tonno Nostromo.
Karim Bartoletti, partner and executive producer at
Milan/Rome-based Filmmaster, and a member of this year’s
Film Craft jury, is currently involved in the radical transformation
of a company whose core business used to be largely local.
“Filmmaster is 35 years old this year, which, compared to the
normal lifespan of a company in this sector, is quite exceptional,”
he says. “But our business is changing so profoundly and so rapidly
that we have adopted a completely different mind-set.
“Given the fact that a lot of the local business has collapsed,
instead of thinking of ourselves as an advertising production
company, we have become ‘a production company based in Italy’.
One of the reasons we did that is because our business has become
global. We get calls from all over the world, we shoot all over the
world, we do service jobs for companies across the world, and
we also source directors from all around the world, and that
makes the boundaries of our business almost non-existent.”
Although the company’s focus has become much more
global, Gucci and Pirelli are two regular and important clients.
n
Filmmaster’s
spot for Pirelli
FRIDAY, JUNE 24,2011