La actividad de las film commission en la Eurorregión Galicia-Norte de Portugal y su participación en la serie Auga Seca = The activity of the film commission in the Galicia-North Portugal Euroregion and its participation in the Auga Seca series

Abstract

Film Commissions are born with two key objectives: on the one hand, a commercial objective, to achieve the greatest number of audiovisual shootings in a certain place, and on the other hand, a technical objective, trying to supplant the needs of these productions. In essence, film commissions bring results that set the territory in the imagination of its target audience, providing direct and free publicity to the place where it is developed and, consequently, an economic benefit. The promotion of joint audiovisual productions between the public television of Galicia (CRTVG) and Portugal (RTP) has acquired great importance in the last decade in the Eurorregión Galicia-Northern Portugal thanks to their linguistic and cultural similarities that make them twinned communities. In addition to disseminating the cross-border territory through different locations, this promotion involves opening new foreign markets that position it as a major tourist destination, and with it the development of the Galicia-North Portugal Euroregion brand. The aim is to give visibility to the so-called Eixo Atlántico do Noroeste Peninsular and Turismo de Galicia through audiovisual initiatives (whether series or film productions) that introduce themselves in the market and raises the interest of different audiences. In this sense, film commissions have become a tool to promote the technical and professional audiovisual resources of these emerging areas. This study aims to realize a tour through different audiovisual projects already materialized between the film commissions of Galicia and Portugal in recent years, paying special attention to successful cases, such as the recently aired series "Auga Seca" on the HBO platform in order to analyze all the elements related to the promotion of the territory, culture, lusophony and positioning of the brand "Euroregion Galicia-North of Portugal". Moreover, the creation statutes of the public television channels CRTVG and RTP are analyzed in order to compare the promotion of language and territory in the audiovisual productions of both channels and countries. This research tries to prove the hypothesis of a progressive increase of collaboration and co-production agreements between Galician and Portuguese audiovisual production companies, and specifically between the public channels CRTVG and RTP. In the same way, the interest of the audiences is growing, which translates into an increase of productions in all formats.