Two years after Spain was ‘guest country of honour’, the Secretary of State for Digitisation and Artificial Intelligence, María González Veracruz, presented at the Marché du Film of the Cannes Film Festival – the largest film market in the world – the new phase of the Spain Audiovisual Hub Plan of Europe, funded by the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan (PRTR)

With this initiative, the Government of Spain seeks to attract international investments to consolidate the Spanish audiovisual sector, boosting its leadership and strengthening the competitiveness of Spanish companies in the global market.

For this, as González Veracruz explained in the panel ‘Spain Audiovisual Hub: a model of success and new investment opportunities in the audiovisual industry’, the second phase of the PRTR has launched the new ‘Spain Audiovisual Hub Line’, which is mobilizing funds worth 1,712 million euros.

“Four years ago, the Government of Spain had an idea: we saw that Spain could play an important role in the international audiovisual scene. That we had the talent, the capacities and the raw materials to be an audiovisual power. All that was needed was a government that believed in the audiovisual sector as a strategic sector. This idea was embodied in the Spain Audiovisual Hub Plan, which involved 13 ministries and which, for the first time, considered the audiovisual as a tool for transformation, employment, growth and sustainability,” said the Secretary of State.

“The aim of the plan was to make Spain the most prominent production centre in all of Europe. With a mix of legislative reforms, investments, creativity and public-private collaboration, the plan has worked. Thanks to it, employment has increased, production has multiplied, and Spain attracts more and more filming and foreign investment. Today we are in a position to inaugurate the “second season” of the plan, through innovative policies of support and public investment,” he said.

Investment incentives and access to finance

In this way, the second phase of the plan aims to encourage private investment and improve access to funding for projects related to film, television, content generation, digital culture, as well as the development of multimedia and interactive content, such as video games and visual effects, among others.

These funds, under loans or repayable investments, are managed by the Spanish Society for Technological Transformation (SETT), a public business entity attached to the Ministry for Digital Transformation and Public Function. The line forms part of the framework approved in February 2024 by the Council of Ministers to mobilise a total of 40 billion euros in PRTR loans with which to promote the green and digital transition of companies.

Impact of an investment of 1,600 million euros

The person in charge of detailing these financial mechanisms at the session, located on the main stage of the Marché du Film, in the building of the Palais des Festivals in Cannes, was the Audiovisual Director of SETT, María Coronado. For her part, the Director-General of Digitalization and Audiovisual Communication Services Management, Carla Redondo Galbarriatu, has announced the balance of the first phase of the Spain Audiovisual Hub Plan of Europe, developed between 2021 and 2024. In total, 1,603 million euros were mobilised.

In this regard, among the activities carried out, special mention should be made of the grants promoted together with the Centre for Technological Development and Innovation (CDTI) for digital technologies and videogames worth EUR 30 million; or the grants for projects of experimental development and process innovation through technologies associated with the Metaverse and Web 3 for an amount of EUR 3.8 million.

They also highlight the grants for the creation or improvement of digital ecosystems in the audiovisual sector for 25 million euros, promoted with Red.es; the direct grant to the Audiovisual Mutual Guarantee Society (Crea SGR) worth 4.5 million euros; or the grant to ICEX for the amount of 20 million euros for the international promotion of the Spanish audiovisual sector and the attraction of filming during the period 2022-2024, among others.

According to Redondo Galbarriatu, the measures implemented have had a positive impact on the Spanish audiovisual sector. The support of the Ministry for Digital Transformation and the Public Foundation, through the grant to Crea SGR, has involved an investment in the sector of more than 142 million euros, allowing guarantees to more than 200 audiovisual projects including films, series, documentaries, videogames and animation projects, among others.

He has also given as an example the grant of 20 million to ICEX, which has increased by 400% the number of annual promotional activities for the promotion of audiovisual abroad through fairs, events and trade missions. Specifically, it has gone from supporting 463 companies in their internationalization in the triennium 2019-2021, to 2,304 in the period 2022-2024. Thus, Spain has been present as a guest country at the Marché du Film in Cannes, at the Locarno Film Festival, at the European Film Market in Berlinale, and has increased its presence in hitherto unexplored markets such as Asia, the Middle East, Central Europe and Eastern Europe.

In terms of indicators, according to the report of the Spain Film Commission ‘Economic impact of incentives to international filming in Spain’, each euro invested in tax incentives to international filming has generated a return of 9 euros in the Spanish economy. It is estimated that these productions generated or sustained an average of more than 7,000 full-time equivalent jobs each year. According to the study, between 2019 and 2022 Spain hosted 165 international filming sessions. In parallel, employment in the audiovisual sector has grown by 93% in the last three years. Likewise, Spain has gone from producing 45 series a year in 2018 to 85 in 2022.

The session is available andn the video channel of the festive Marché du Filml l l l l