Growth numbers are not the whole story
Bizkaia alone saw audiovisual employment rise 50.5% between 2014 and 2024, while the number of companies linked to the sector climbed from 284 to 448. In 2025, the Bilbao Bizkaia Film Commission supported 219 shoots with an estimated economic impact of €138.1 million ($158.45 million).
The headline numbers show a production economy scaling quickly. But they also surface a more strategic question: what, exactly, counts as a Basque production?
Xabi Berzosa of San Sebastian-based Irusoin says the legal definition is straightforward: if a film is produced by a Basque production company, it is Basque. But he immediately points out the gap between that definition and creative reality. Irusoin is a co-producer on Nanni Moretti’s latest film “It Will Happen Tonight,” alongside Fandango and BTeam Prods.
“The film is Basque, as well as Italian and French,” Berzosa says. “It’s shot in Italy and in the Basque Country, in Italian. … We don’t really feel that’s a portrait of Basque filmmaking nowadays, of course, but legally it’s Basque.”
For filmmaker Koldo Almandoz, whose Basque-language feature “The Last Goodbye” plays out of competition in San Sebastian’s Official Selection, the answer lies in culture, language, crews and intent. He is blunt about productions arriving mainly for tax incentives: “You can call it co-production, but we all know that it’s like they are working as commission agents.”
Iker Ganuza, president of producers’ association EPE-IBAIA and a producer at Lamia Producciones, frames the test around control and retained value. A Basque production is not simply something filmed in the territory, he argues; the decisive questions are where decisions are made, where intellectual property remains, how much Basque talent and business are involved, and how much value stays.
If he had to choose one criterion, Ganuza says, it would be “deep-rooted business and creative presence, along with decision-making capacity.”
Servicing, co-producing and the ownership gap
None of the producers dismiss international shoots. Ganuza says major international productions create jobs, economic activity and international visibility. But he adds: “once filming wraps up, the intellectual property, business decisions, and much of the future value leave the country.”
Berzosa makes the same split between servicing and co-producing. “The obvious solution is to service that shooting,” he says. “You are hired, they come and they go.” Services provide work and continuity, he argues, but “they don’t develop a local established industry for the long term.”
The practical distinction matters for media planners and content buyers because it changes what a market is building:
- Service work captures short-term spend and crew employment, but little long-term IP.
- Co-production can build ownership, creative input and a stake in future value.
- Local-language output carries cultural weight but cannot be the only measure of a production economy.
Almandoz worries about what happens to local infrastructure if conditions change. “If sometime these fiscal advantages disappear, all these little home companies we had, that were working for us, now absorbed by bigger companies, are they gonna stay, or are they gonna go… to Madrid or Barcelona or Paris?” He is not predicting collapse; people are working and learning, he says, but he cautions against trying to go from zero to 100 in three years.
Language is a layer, not the whole test
Berzosa says a film written, shot and released in Euskara is a particularly clear example of cultural weight, but not a requirement for something to qualify as Basque. Ganuza likewise argues that the language must be specially protected, while warning against making it the sole measure. “We can tell Basque stories to the world and also produce universal stories from the Basque Country.”
The 2030 metric
Ganuza says the next phase must focus on making sure international investment strengthens local companies rather than displacing them. “The main problem is not a lack of opportunities,” he says. “It is precisely the opposite: there is a huge opportunity, and we must ensure that growth does not leave behind the companies that have built this sector right here.”
The benchmark he wants is less about next year’s shoot count and more about where the Basque film industry stands in 2030. That is a useful test for any region using incentives to court global production: short-term spend is visible, but retained ownership, IP and decision-making reveal whether a production economy is being built or merely rented.
Source: Variety
