After a few years affected by the negative effects of the pandemic, Catalan film production is in good luck, with a record volume of films: in 2022, 98 titles with Catalan participation were qualified, 21% more than the year before previous and the highest figure of the 21st century (above 95 in 2010) with 4 million viewers in Spanish theaters and Tadeu Jones 3: the emerald table as the main box office success, according to the advance of a study which was announced yesterday by the Catalan Cinema Academy in collaboration with the Audiovisual Production Observatory (OPA) and the support of Audiovisual Producers of Catalonia (PAC). The historical figure is part of a context of generalized growth throughout the State. “We are going back. It is the year that Catalonia has participated the most in more Spanish films”, comments to La Vanguardia Joan M. Corbella, director of the OPA, Pompeu Fabra University’s portal intended to offer study services on audiovisual production. Parallel to the growth in the volume of production, the number of Catalan production companies that have participated in the films also rises, a figure that goes from 89 to 119 companies.
The relative weight of this Catalan production with respect to the total of Spanish films produced in 2022 is 30.5%, a figure that slightly improves that of 2021, but which remains in the 28%-32% range since 2016. The 35% of 2015 is a long way off and the 48% of 2010 even more. Corbella does not see the amount as bad: “The ability to intervene in the Spanish film market has not been lost despite the strategies of some autonomous communities “. 56.1% of the Catalan films qualified in 2022 were fiction; 41.8%, documentaries, and 2%, animation. The figures, similar to those of last year, present a significant variation in the proportional weight of Catalan fiction with respect to the Spanish total, which goes from 33.6% to 37.2%, and increase its weight relative within the framework of the State. Despite the small number of animated films, it is precisely this genre that has marked the big jump in theaters, as it goes from 316 to 1,793,525 viewers, marked fundamentally by the impact at the box office of Tadeu Jones 3 : the emerald table, by Enrique Gato. “A mandatory investment quota in animation is needed to give stability to the sector, and televisions are fundamental here”, points out Corbella. To this day, the number of spectators in the theaters of the 98 Catalan films qualified for 2022 exceeds four million (4,039,784), and triples the figure of the previous year. If we frame this data in the Spanish box office as a whole, we find that the cinema with Catalan production in 2022 constitutes 28% of the total number of viewers of Spanish production films in the State, set at 14,270,814 until today .
The presentation of the study coincides with the celebration of the traditional summer party of the Academy presided over by Judith Colell, who yesterday moved to the botanical garden of Barcelona to have, among others, the presence on the carpet red by Elena Martín, Elena Trapé, Celia Rico, Sílvia Munt, Vicky Luengo, Malcolm McCarthy, Iván Morales, Aina Clotet or Bruna Cusí. During the event, the Pepón Coromina prize was awarded to Visual Women, an association promoting women filmmakers and audiovisual media in Catalonia that defends and promotes the presence of women in the audiovisual sector.
