Fresco Film Services, playing a brilliant role in reviving international film shoots in Spain.
Led by Peter Welter and Silvia Aráez, Fresco earned significant global recognition by providing production services to HBO while filming several seasons of the «Game of Thrones» TV series in Spain between 2014 and 2018.
This Malaga-based company, whose operations are divided between mainland Spain, the Canary Islands and Portugal, have collaborated on other noteworthy international films such as «Terminator: Dark Fate» or «Spider-Man: Far From Home» and TV series such as «Warrior Nun», «Narcos: Mexico», «WestWorld» and «Killing Eve».
«The international productions that come to Spain bring less and less equipment and hire more staff here because we have been able to demonstrate that there is not only talent in Spain, but experienced talent with a good work ethic. Spanish professionals are on par with the best in the world,» Welter explains.
Fresco has been a pioneer in that it has made managing and processing appealing tax incentives for audiovisual production in Spain easier; since 2015, it has returned more than €18 million in incentives to its international clients.
This figure, according to forecasts, will increase significantly over the next few years thanks to the new tax incentive regulations approved last May by the Spanish Government. Profilm, an association of production companies that carries out audiovisual projects with third countries, which Fresco is a leading member of, has been one of main supporters of this legislation.
Despite filming difficulties in 2020, conditioned by the Covid-19 pandemic, in August, Fresco provided services for the filming of «El joven jefe Winnetou» in Almeria, a German production by SamFilm distributed by Warner.
In November it shot «Red Notice» in Valencia for Netflix and «Shrine» by Screen Gems in Lisbon. And in December, it provided production services in Almeria for the film «And Tomorrow You Will Be Dead», by Zodiac Pictures, and is about to start the shooting of «In From The Cold», the Netflix spy series that had to stop last March because of the virus.
Currently, the Spanish service company has four projects in pre-production; however, it has not provided any information on them due to confidentiality agreements. Of course, it continues to work with his regular clients, including global SVOD operators Netflix and HBO and major studios such as Sony Pictures and Paramount.
«Without a doubt, the greatest challenge of 2020 was the Covid-19 pandemic. We were able to adapt to it very well thanks to communication with both the authorities and the major studios, suppliers and technicians, which allowed us to develop safe internal protocols. Not only have these protocols worked well, they also demonstrated that it was possible to meet production deadlines,” he explained.
«In the current situation, protection is our first priority, but we are also trying to ensure that this does not cause an environmental imbalance. In 2018, we created an environmental sustainability department and one of our objectives is to promote an environmentally-friendly attitude among our team, suppliers and customers. Sustainability is the only future we can afford.»
The work of the Fresco Film Services team has been recognized several times at the highest level. Accordingly, in October, Jordi Utset won the 2020 Location Managers Guild International award for his location work in «Killing Eve», which is an award that Tate Aráez, the location manager for «Game of Thrones», already won in 2015 and 2018.
«We feel like ambassadors for our country. Our first objective is to defend of our clients’ interests, but at the same time, we are here to broaden their horizons and helped them get further acquainted with Spain. We also intend to contribute to a sustainable economic development of the rural world, working hand in hand with film tourism,» he said.
«In the past, we have shown that this works wonderfully. Places like Molina de Aragón, San Juan de Gaztelugatxe and Cáceres have seen increased economic opportunities thanks to the tourism brought about by their appearance in «Game of Thrones». We are proud to say that many rural areas have benefited from these shootings, which have even stopped depopulation in some areas.
