Showing posts with label Mallorca International Film Festival. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Mallorca International Film Festival. Show all posts
Thursday, June 30, 2011
MALLORCA TODAY - Nadal accused over film festival
Former tourism minister Miguel Nadal has been accused of looking to divert over 2 million euros of funds from the Mallorca International Film Festival which had been scheduled for this year but which collapsed owing to a lack of sponsors.
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
The Director's Cut: Film festival and Nadal ads
How ironic. While photos of ecstatic Oscar winners are being splashed buoyantly across the pages of websites and newspapers, elsewhere the film industry is floundering and possibly also drowning - the Mallorcan film industry, that is, and specifically the Mallorca International Film Festival.
Go back a few months, to the World Travel Market in London for example. A stand, a logo, a microphone. A laughing actor, Colin Meaney; a glamorous Italian actress, Maria Grazia Cucinotta; a beaming director, David Carreras. The film festival was in the spotlight. One of the partners in the film festival, and the reason for the promotion at the travel market, was the tourism ministry. Go back a few months, and in the photo album from London there was someone else. Stage left of Carreras. Smiling. Miquel Nadal, the then tourism minister. Many takes have been made since that photo, and Nadal, together with his reputation, has been left in tatters on the cutting-room floor.
It wasn't just the local press that joined in the celebrations and the announcements. "The Daily Mail" got in on the act, quoting Carreras in his best brochure talk: "the island is stunning, we have beautiful scenery and it would be perfect to hold an international event like this." The prospect of ever more celebrities, the prospect of some A-list promotion for Mallorca and the prospect of a film festival that might even compete with Cannes. It had it all. A showcase for the island, the lovely people of an up-market image Mallorca so craves, the diversification of the tourism industry in a different cultural direction - the cinema. It had it all. So where did it go wrong?
Carreras got the first inkling of trouble when he presented initial invoices to the tourism ministry, which was in for some 650 grand's worth of the lights, camera and action, around a third of the financing. Nadal's replacement, Miquel Ferrer, said that there was a problem with the agreement and that there was something to do with a grant. Something to do with a grant. Hmm.
The tourism ministry, and therefore the Balearic Government, has stated that the agreement is in the process of being annulled. The legal chaps have been giving it the once over, but there has been no clear statement as to precisely what the issue is with the agreement. Carreras, along with other private investors, has pumped money into the project and is, you might guess, incandescent. He has every right to be.
This may not be the end for the film festival. A resolution with the government may be sought and even found. More private investment might be forthcoming. But were it to be and the government got away without handing over a centimo and yet could wallow in the publicity of the festival, a rotten stench would be left. And unfortunately, in the absence of a clear statement, one is left to imagine another odour. I leave that to you to figure out.
The shambles that has been the tourism ministry has also left Rafael Nadal tied up at the moorings of television advertising. Rather than bouncing over the waves and sailing into the living-rooms of mainland Spain, Germany and the UK, the promotional adverts with the Manacor Muscle have been becalmed by a paralysis of inactivity at tourism, the consequence of all the comings and goings. New minister Barceló recognises the problem and has said that the promotional campaign will be reactivated as swiftly as possible. She seems to be saying that a lot of things will be done swiftly, such as seeking a resolution as to another paralysis - that of the golf course in Muro. The Nadal adverts are due to be shown for periods of two months in the three main tourism markets. Eventually.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Go back a few months, to the World Travel Market in London for example. A stand, a logo, a microphone. A laughing actor, Colin Meaney; a glamorous Italian actress, Maria Grazia Cucinotta; a beaming director, David Carreras. The film festival was in the spotlight. One of the partners in the film festival, and the reason for the promotion at the travel market, was the tourism ministry. Go back a few months, and in the photo album from London there was someone else. Stage left of Carreras. Smiling. Miquel Nadal, the then tourism minister. Many takes have been made since that photo, and Nadal, together with his reputation, has been left in tatters on the cutting-room floor.
It wasn't just the local press that joined in the celebrations and the announcements. "The Daily Mail" got in on the act, quoting Carreras in his best brochure talk: "the island is stunning, we have beautiful scenery and it would be perfect to hold an international event like this." The prospect of ever more celebrities, the prospect of some A-list promotion for Mallorca and the prospect of a film festival that might even compete with Cannes. It had it all. A showcase for the island, the lovely people of an up-market image Mallorca so craves, the diversification of the tourism industry in a different cultural direction - the cinema. It had it all. So where did it go wrong?
Carreras got the first inkling of trouble when he presented initial invoices to the tourism ministry, which was in for some 650 grand's worth of the lights, camera and action, around a third of the financing. Nadal's replacement, Miquel Ferrer, said that there was a problem with the agreement and that there was something to do with a grant. Something to do with a grant. Hmm.
The tourism ministry, and therefore the Balearic Government, has stated that the agreement is in the process of being annulled. The legal chaps have been giving it the once over, but there has been no clear statement as to precisely what the issue is with the agreement. Carreras, along with other private investors, has pumped money into the project and is, you might guess, incandescent. He has every right to be.
This may not be the end for the film festival. A resolution with the government may be sought and even found. More private investment might be forthcoming. But were it to be and the government got away without handing over a centimo and yet could wallow in the publicity of the festival, a rotten stench would be left. And unfortunately, in the absence of a clear statement, one is left to imagine another odour. I leave that to you to figure out.
The shambles that has been the tourism ministry has also left Rafael Nadal tied up at the moorings of television advertising. Rather than bouncing over the waves and sailing into the living-rooms of mainland Spain, Germany and the UK, the promotional adverts with the Manacor Muscle have been becalmed by a paralysis of inactivity at tourism, the consequence of all the comings and goings. New minister Barceló recognises the problem and has said that the promotional campaign will be reactivated as swiftly as possible. She seems to be saying that a lot of things will be done swiftly, such as seeking a resolution as to another paralysis - that of the golf course in Muro. The Nadal adverts are due to be shown for periods of two months in the three main tourism markets. Eventually.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Thursday, November 12, 2009
No More
Does the regional government have a policy on golf courses? As far as the opposition is concerned, it does not, and it is not difficult to understand why it might think this. On the one hand, there is the tourism minister giving more or less carte blanche for the building of more courses and on the other there is the transport minister saying that no more will be built. He also reckons that the 23 in existence on Mallorca are sufficient and that many of these are under-utilised, a view that it is difficult to disagree with.
This contrariness is, though, hard to fathom. The tourism ministry's stance would see, for example, the building of the course in Campos, along, in all likelihood, with a hotel complex. This course might actually make sense, given that Campos has so little by way of tourism. But in the wider scheme of things, i.e. taking the island as a whole, whether any more courses are needed must be open to question, something which, more than the environmental issue, has always dogged the credibility of the building of the Muro course.
Over the past eighteen months or so, there have been different reports, one saying that the island is "golfed-out" and agreeing that no more are warranted, another reckoning that no-one should be more than 50 minutes from a golf course, whatever the hell that's supposed to mean. More courses probably. There has also been the association of golf tour operators saying that the numbers coming to play golf could rise by 15%. And when its president met the tourism minister, the latter forecast a situation in which the Balearics would become the leading golf destination in Europe.
None of this quite adds up, unless, that is, one accepts that a 15% rise in golfing tourists could be accommodated by current courses, which probably is the case. But as golf is presented as being such an important facet of the so-called "alternative" tourism, the fact that the government seems to be unclear as to its actual policy does seem rather curious.
If not golf, then how about half-marathons to swell the tourism masses? Or how about a film festival to do likewise? From next year there will be a half-marathon in Pollensa - in April in fact. And in 2011, also in April, there will be the first Mallorca International Film Festival, which presumably will become an annual event. Both of them are worthy enough, but neither has much to do with improving the winter tourism scene, given that they will both be staged just prior to the start of the main season and that neither will necessarily generate much by way of "new" tourism.
And still on a sporting theme ... Real Mallorca. Thrice woe, or maybe several times more woe. The latest farce, the selling to the Martí family that has proved not to be a sale as the previous interim owner has not been paid, now sees the club back in the hands of that interim owner, Mateu Alemany. This lawyer is something of a club hero as he regularly pops up to try and dig it out of its latest hole. One might ask if he was perhaps less than diligent in gaining assurances as to the financial capabilities of the Martí family. He accepts that he made a mistake but that the information he had led him to believe that they would prove acceptable. Alemany is right when he says that no-one, least of all in the press, raised any great questions about the family's ability to finance the club. One thing's for sure, he will make damn sure that any new owner does have the financial wherewithal, though the questions remain as to what state the club might be in come May when the next sale is projected and as to who might even want the club.
QUIZ
Yesterday's title - Three Dog Night, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dFypAB7nYGA. Today's title - Bathgate, Linwood, Methil ... and you'll need to apply an Auchtermuchty accent. Great song and video. And as an additional question ... In which TV drama series did Methil feature as a lousy place to play a gig?
(PLEASE REPLY TO andrew@thealcudiaguide.com AND NOT VIA THE COMMENTS THINGY HERE.)
This contrariness is, though, hard to fathom. The tourism ministry's stance would see, for example, the building of the course in Campos, along, in all likelihood, with a hotel complex. This course might actually make sense, given that Campos has so little by way of tourism. But in the wider scheme of things, i.e. taking the island as a whole, whether any more courses are needed must be open to question, something which, more than the environmental issue, has always dogged the credibility of the building of the Muro course.
Over the past eighteen months or so, there have been different reports, one saying that the island is "golfed-out" and agreeing that no more are warranted, another reckoning that no-one should be more than 50 minutes from a golf course, whatever the hell that's supposed to mean. More courses probably. There has also been the association of golf tour operators saying that the numbers coming to play golf could rise by 15%. And when its president met the tourism minister, the latter forecast a situation in which the Balearics would become the leading golf destination in Europe.
None of this quite adds up, unless, that is, one accepts that a 15% rise in golfing tourists could be accommodated by current courses, which probably is the case. But as golf is presented as being such an important facet of the so-called "alternative" tourism, the fact that the government seems to be unclear as to its actual policy does seem rather curious.
If not golf, then how about half-marathons to swell the tourism masses? Or how about a film festival to do likewise? From next year there will be a half-marathon in Pollensa - in April in fact. And in 2011, also in April, there will be the first Mallorca International Film Festival, which presumably will become an annual event. Both of them are worthy enough, but neither has much to do with improving the winter tourism scene, given that they will both be staged just prior to the start of the main season and that neither will necessarily generate much by way of "new" tourism.
And still on a sporting theme ... Real Mallorca. Thrice woe, or maybe several times more woe. The latest farce, the selling to the Martí family that has proved not to be a sale as the previous interim owner has not been paid, now sees the club back in the hands of that interim owner, Mateu Alemany. This lawyer is something of a club hero as he regularly pops up to try and dig it out of its latest hole. One might ask if he was perhaps less than diligent in gaining assurances as to the financial capabilities of the Martí family. He accepts that he made a mistake but that the information he had led him to believe that they would prove acceptable. Alemany is right when he says that no-one, least of all in the press, raised any great questions about the family's ability to finance the club. One thing's for sure, he will make damn sure that any new owner does have the financial wherewithal, though the questions remain as to what state the club might be in come May when the next sale is projected and as to who might even want the club.
QUIZ
Yesterday's title - Three Dog Night, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dFypAB7nYGA. Today's title - Bathgate, Linwood, Methil ... and you'll need to apply an Auchtermuchty accent. Great song and video. And as an additional question ... In which TV drama series did Methil feature as a lousy place to play a gig?
(PLEASE REPLY TO andrew@thealcudiaguide.com AND NOT VIA THE COMMENTS THINGY HERE.)
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