James Costos bets on turning Spain into the ‘Hollywood of Europe’

The Diplomat Former US Ambassador to Spain James Costos said during a discussion at Iberseries & Platino Industria in Madrid that "Spain is really a goldmine for people to develop localised stories", when asked about the Government's aim to turn Spain into the 'Hollywood of Europe’. In addition to Costos, currently president of Secuoya Studios in Los Angeles, the panel included Georgina González, vice president of global scripted series at Universal International Studios, and Jacobo Aparicio, director of international content at Anonymous Content. Costos said, according to ‘The Hollywood Reporter’, that he sees himself as "a conduit between Hollywood and Spain’, where "we want to attract as much business as possible". However, while noting that the Spanish Government has worked to reduce bureaucracy, he added that to achieve this goal, "fiscal incentives really had to be changed". Spain has "a lot of natural beauty and locations, and weather", he said. "People really want to come and shoot here" but, he said, “the pre-existing relationships that Hollywood people have with people from other parts of the world sometimes lead them to take 'shortcuts’, even if they recognise the richness of Spain in terms of skills, locations, and more’. "So we want to attract as much business as we possibly can, whether it comes to Sequoia or our competitors, we want that business to land here" because, according to the former ambassador, the film industry “is an economic engine, a job creator, and not just for Spain but for the United States”.

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