I’ve just come back from a few days in Antalya, Turkey, where I was keynote speaker at a national Film Commissions’ conference. Organised by the erudite and thoroughly entertaining Mr Zihni Tumer and his team, the conference gathered eight cities from all over the country under the auspices of the Ministry of Information, Ministry of Culture and Tourism and the General Directorate of Motion Pictures and Copyrights, to discuss Film Commissions and how they might work in Turkey.
Over two days I was invited to outline the opportunities, benefits, possible structures of film commissions in Turkey, as well as explain their objectives, functions and key interventions. The fascinating Stefan Roesch also spoke about Film Tourism, and the gentlemanly George David also demonstrated the hugely successful Royal Film Commission of Jordan as a case study, and shared some of the fantastic things being done in Amman to build a dynamic, professional crew base. I also had the pleasure of meeting producer Manu Gargi, who’d just wrapped Ghost Rider 2 in the country (starring the awful Nicky Cage – above) and had very good things to say about his experiences. He even had nice things to say about Mr. Cage, which of course I couldn’t actually understand…..
Anyway, all eight cities will now be encouraged to prepare models that suit their local jurisdictions, and we’ll reconvene in a few months to assess progress.