Murcia...something is moving...

Dear all,

As it seems something is happening in the Region of Murcia…and not just in the autonomous region itself but on the whole southeast of Spain.

Last February it was presented to the public what is to be called Contentpolis. This is an scheme by the autonomous government to create an industrial state, which is to integrate businesses focused on the production of digital content as well as providing a breeding ground of new initiatives on application of technology.

This initiative was reinforced by the assurance made by the president of the autonomous government in an Economic Forum in Madrid (Mr. Ramon Luis Valcarcel) that this was to become one of the main targets of his four year mandate.

On the other hand things are moving forward in the neighbouring area of Alicante. No one but Mr. Coppola himself is due to shoot some important scenes of his latest productions in Ciudad de la Luz which are, as you know, these huge film studios built just 35Km away from Murcia.

This illustrates the fact that an industry is coming together in the southeast of Spain not just from the production point of view, bearing in mind the huge effort made round Ciudad de la Luz, but also for post-production and other means of entertainment as shown by Contentpolis, project cleverly geared up towards new means of entertainment which are rapidly building up worldwide.

Murcia, traditionally being accused of a region held back by an economy system based on conventional and old fashioned ways of tourism and agriculture, has decided to make a bold move on incorporating technology and entertainment businesses under the umbrella of Contentpolis. Besides the new regional TV channel (Channel 7) is an initiative funded by private capital, ie. Old fashioned businesses funding entertainment? Well let me say that, whether their audience rates are ridiculous, whether their way of making TV is too old fashioned, the fact is that I ask for a round of applause for this as it means new ways of funding entertainment through joint ventures with private and corporate investors not familiar to the industry.

Is it to be a 1500M€ scheme? Is it to be 8000€? It doesn’t really matter as long as someone cares and things are properly done, and “done” means doing things, not wishful thinking and/or speculating.

Let´s take entertainment away from politics and bureaucracy to make competitive companies and story creators…in other words let´s have fun and do it well.

Thanx 2 U all,

JE