John Ford once said that when the legend outshines reality, you should print the legend. It was brilliant advice for filmmaking but rather poor for building a region. This is because Aragón has been trapped for decades in the opposite dilemma: here, reality far exceeds legend, yet no one has bothered to tell that story.
Aragón always ends up being the land where everyone falls in love… after they have filmed there. Before that, however, it requires convincing, explaining, showing photographs, sending dossiers, and repeating the same phrase over and over: «No, Aragón is not just the Pilar.»
There’s a scene I’ve experienced on several occasions when meeting with national and international production companies. A director or art director lays out photographs of potential locations. Someone points at an image.
— This looks like Utah.
No.
Another.
— Morocco?
Not that either.
One more.
— Could it be some valley in Scotland?
Cold.
The response usually elicits the same surprised expression.
— It’s Aragón.
And then comes that expression we all know who have been in this business for a while.
“That can’t be Aragón.”
And there begins the same conversation: the realization that we have been living for decades on one of the largest natural film sets in Europe without making much noise about it. As if it embarrassed us to brag about it. Very Aragonese, indeed.
Filming in Aragón Has Its Advantages
There was a time when filming in Aragón meant productions like Jamón, jamón, the spaghetti westerns in Monegros, or The Adventures of Baron Munchausen. And while some continued to think that only memories were filmed here, Guy Ritchie turned Zaragoza Air Base into Afghanistan for The Covenant, Marvel chose Riglos cliffs and the Gállego River for Venom: Let There Be Carnage, Amazon filmed at La Aljafería for the series El Cid, and Oliver Laxe shot Sirat in the Red Canyons of Barrachina.
The reality is that Aragón has been working for a long time to compete at the highest levels of the audiovisual industry, and it is finally achieving that goal. In just four years, the Zaragoza Film Office and the Aragón Film Commission have managed over two hundred projects annually, generating a million-dollar economic impact for the region.
And this is not only due to the variety of beautiful landscapes but to a machinery that ensures every filming day runs like clockwork. Because when a territory makes production easy, it stops competing on charm and starts competing on profitability. That is the true language the industry speaks.
I think there is something profoundly attractive about a territory that presents solutions instead of obstacles. That understands a permit cannot take three weeks because a shoot moves at the speed of a poorly brewed coffee. That realizes that behind a camera, there is no glamour, but an army of people trying to make sure everything goes smoothly before nightfall.
The audiovisual industry is ruthless. Very romantic when awards are handed out, but quite the opposite when you have to raise a forty-million-euro shoot, and every minute of delay costs the same as an apartment in downtown Zaragoza. It’s not just about having a good set, but about ensuring there is someone to hold up the set when the wind blows.
The good news is that Aragón is no longer just selling landscapes; it’s starting to sell trust, which is worth much more. In fact, the best cinematic promotion for a region is when a producer wants to return. That when someone finishes filming here, they leave saying, “It was surprisingly easy.” There’s no more powerful marketing campaign than that phrase.
What’s fascinating is that Aragón has a competitive advantage we hardly talk about. It is not saturated. It still retains that wonderful ability to say «yes» before starting to explain why not. It may seem trivial, but in an industry used to battling with permits, administrations, and impossible schedules, encountering someone who seeks solutions creates an indescribable excitement.
Because if you ask me, as a producer, where I would film my movie, I would probably not choose the place with the most beautiful landscapes but the one where I could find people who would allow me to sleep more soundly.
District 7, Towards Solidifying the Ecosystem
While many regions continue to vie for the next Netflix series, as if waiting for a lottery win, Aragón is beginning to shape a much more ambitious idea: to create a permanent ecosystem for production, innovation, talent development, technology companies, attracting international investment, and consolidating a genuine audiovisual economy.
This is the ambitious proposal of District 7, a project from the Zaragoza City Council that comes at a time when the global sector is looking for new production hubs outside the saturated major markets.
I must admit that when I first heard the name, it sounded like a secret superhero hideout to me, and, saving distances, I was not far off. District 7 is not just about building studios; it’s about weaving an industry, two very different things. Because studios can be rented, but the industry remains.
And when an industry remains, wonderful things begin to happen. Talent stops leaving. Companies start to grow. New ones arrive. Young people stop believing their future is six hundred kilometers away. Ideas find a place to become businesses. And, almost without realizing it, a community stops competing for isolated projects and transforms into a place where things happen every day.
Because the true success of a territory’s audiovisual sector isn’t that a Hollywood star takes a selfie next to the Pilar; it’s that when that star leaves, there is still work the following Monday. I care much more about whether, in ten years, there will be Aragonese companies designing visual effects for half the world, studios developing virtual production, specialized technicians becoming international references, and foreign producers calling because they know that things work here.
Obviously, there is still a lot of work to be done, and it would be absurd to think otherwise. The audiovisual sector is a long-distance race, and no one wins by having run one kilometer well. We must continue investing, training professionals, attracting companies, and believing, once and for all, that Aragón can compete in the big leagues.
A Promising Future
Our region has a virtue that is very uncinematic but genuinely useful: it still surprises. And surprising is the fuel of cinema. I am convinced that if the Monegros…
