Isabel Diaz Ayuso, president of the Community of Madrid, visited South Korea to attract projects and investments to the region. The popular leader proposed Madrid as a potential setting for filming South Korean productions, which could mean the possibility of future film and series co-productions with the Asian country. This Saturday, the Madrid president visited the facilities in Seoul of Studio Climaxa leading company in the audiovisual sector in South Korea. During his visit, Ayuso opened the door to collaboration with the Community of Madrid, as reported by the Regional Executive in a press release.
Studio Climax focuses its activity on the creation of high quality content for cinema and television. The great popularity of South Korean productions offers great export potential aimed at all types of audiences. Korean box office reached 850 million euros in 2022, and increased by 9% in 2023, when 781 feature films were produced in the country.
THE Community of Madrid, For its part, the number of audiovisual filming increased by 15% in 2023 compared to 2022. Of the 1,000 productions, 119 were films, 117 short films, 68 series, 473 commercials and 317 projects for the small screen, reports , shows or music. videos.
“This first day, what we wanted to do was study cinema, the audiovisual sector and culture in general, which is very interesting, both Spanish and Korean and, in particular, that of the region. Madrid arouses a lot of interest, but it still remains a great unknown here, just like everything that the cultural audiovisual sector in Korea“We have not yet seen this in Spain,” Ayuso said after his visit to the facilities of Studio Climax, during his first day of institutional travel.
Ayuso defended South Korea the “many contrasts and many facilities” of the Community of Madrid as an audiovisual filming destination. The popular leader put forward the possibility of future co-productions between Madrid and Seoul for films, series but also for the search for talents. He pointed out that at the School of Cinematography and Audiovisual of the Community of Madrid (ECAM), “there are many actors and directors who are very interesting for Korean producers.”
The growth of audiovisual productions in the Community of Madrid reflects the commitment of the regional government to protect, facilitate and encourage filming, taking into account the great variety and versatility of locations, sets, animation and VFX (visual effects) studios ) with which the region counts. All this constitutes a vast infrastructure network and a strong professional offer that brings together more than 3,000 companies in the sector, or 29% of the volume of all of Spain.
Regarding filming in the capital, those of Metro stand out, in whose facilities 22 recordings were made. And among the film titles that took place in the region, the series stand out Berlin, the Immortal either 1992, the movies Your mother or mine, Looking for Coke either Hamburg, among others.
Furthermore, the short films Evanescent And A Midsummer Night’s Tale They chose Madrid as the setting. Added to this are other recordings, linked to advertising campaigns, such as Christmas lottery advertising, or to companies like Bosch or Amazon.
Ayuso is in South Korea this week to continue attracting projects and positioning Madrid as the best place in Europe to invest. For five days, the head of the regional Executive will visit Korean multinationals such as Hyundai, LG and Samsung and hold various meetings with potential investors.