Que passa, Woody?

It seems that after the summer's movie project, Vicky Cristina Barcelona (which our good friend Tuixent worked on), Woody Allen will not be returning to film again here. The head of media firm, Mediapro, who handled the production, has said that Allen won't be filming in Spain or Catalonia again. He cited some political pressure and questions over grants of public money which the production received. Though I'm finding it hard to find any evidence of political pressure, I have found several quotes from local filmmakers and producers complaining about Allen and Mediapro receiving grants from the Ajuntament and the Generalitat.

And I can sympathise with those filmmakers. It must be pretty galling to see a (very wealthy) foreigner come in and snaffle up cultural funding to which you might feel more entitled. I imagine that this is rationalised by the authorities because the film (despite its atrociously bad title) would obviously be a massive advertisement for Barcelona, potentially worth far more than €1.5 million.  But if grants are to be offered to cultural development (and I think they should be), there should perhaps be a way of preventing wealthy directors from New York getting their mits on them. At the same time, Tuixent and plenty of other young residents of Barcelona were employed for the summer and have gained vital experience which will no doubt help their careers in film production.

In the end, I think it's something of a shame that Woody Allen won't be filming in Barcelona again. But he hasn't made a decent film for ages, so perhaps it's not the end of the world. I'm still trying to work out what this alleged political pressure was. I suspect it's an invention of the media (plenty of which, let's remember, is owned by Mediapro), determined to pin something on Catalan political parties.

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November 29, 2007 | Filed Under Catalonia 

Comments

6 Responses to “Que passa, Woody?”

  1. Graeme on November 29th, 2007 3:28 pm

    The further he goes from home the worse his films seem to become. I know he has always wanted to be a European director but his films set in New York are much better. Let Barcelona spend its money on its owm film makers, Woody always finds the funds.

  2. Dean on December 12th, 2007 8:09 pm

    You're not sending Woody back to us, I pray?

  3. Claudia on December 14th, 2007 12:46 am

    Well, it's bad he's not filming in Barca anymore, it's good that he's not gonna spend Catalan public money any longer. However, I want to know if he is still playing with his jazz orchestra in January. Anyone?

    Yes, and to Graeme's comment: I like most of WA movies and particularly the NY era ones. But dude, your comment was gratuitous, Matchpoint is a masterpiece!

    http://www.marmelade.vox.com

  4. Tom on December 14th, 2007 1:02 am

    Hi Claudia - thanks for the link on your blog!

    Are you being serious about Match Point, or is this some sort of elaborate sting? It definitely wasn't as bad as his other recent films but it's no masterpiece.

  5. Claudia on December 14th, 2007 11:30 am

    Yep, dead serious! I would never kid about Allen. To me, I think he finally understood the truth about human nature when he made Matchpoint. Sure, the NY movies are great, but how many are about the rest of the world and how many are about Allen and his neurotic little existence is some attic in Chelsea? I mean, of course, we can relate with that, but Matchpoint was one giant leap for him towards universality. Also, I have a penchant for Dostoievski drama :-), which, I believe, can be interpreted as subjective.

    You're welcome for the link. Your site is tres cool.

  6. Jordi on December 14th, 2007 1:36 pm

    I read on the digital edition of "ABC" (a newspaper not suspicious of being too catalanist) some words from Jaume Roures in which he explained further those first declarations. He explained that Allen was happy filming in Barcelona, and the pressures were being directed towards Mediapro. Roures said that he was annoyed by some false rumours pointing that the Generalitat was annoyed because Javier Bardem's character was going to be a bullfighter (!), something which is completely untrue. And he also pointed that whereas Mediapro was quite pissed about that, that the decision of filming outside Barcelona was taken many months ago.

    I was trying to find the piece I read at the ABC.es website, but I can't find it. But I promise I read it, it's not my imagination that made all of this up. Oh, and I think Roures mentioned that Allen's next film will be shot in San Francisco.

    Claudia, I uploaded a subtitled A.Monkeys video in my music blog. I saw them at the Benicassim festival and they were great, even tough i'm not a big fan of their music.

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