The Basque Country has become an increasingly attractive place to make films and television. In Bizkaia alone, audiovisual employment rose 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 boom has also complicated a simple question: What, exactly, is a Basque production? Is it a project that shoots in the territory, one backed by a Basque company, one made in Euskara, or one whose creative control, intellectual property and long-term economic value remain there? For Xabi Berzosa of San Sebastian-based Irusoin, the legal answer is relatively simple.
That’s simply how it is defined.” Then he offers the complication. Irusoin is a co-producer on Nanni Moretti’s latest film “It Will Happen Tonight,” alongside such companies as Fandango and BTeam Prods. It has to do, he says, with “the soul,” with “the culture, the language, the crews and the intention of the films.” He is blunter about productions arriving primarily because of tax incentives.
For Ganuza, the key questions are where decisions are made, where intellectual property remains, how much Basque talent and business are involved and how much value stays in the region. If he had to choose one criterion, it would be “deep-rooted business and creative presence, along with decision-making capacity.” That word — deep-rooted — sits uneasily beside an industry that is increasingly mobile. Berzosa puts the principle more simply.
Services, Berzosa says, “help people to work and to have continuity,” but “they don’t develop a local established industry for the long term.” Almandoz worries about what happens to that local infrastructure if conditions change. We are learning a lot.”But, he adds: “We want to pass from zero to 100 in three years, and I don’t think it’s the way.” Language adds another layer. For Berzosa, a film written, shot and released in Euskara is one particularly clear example of a production with cultural weight, but it is not a requirement for something to qualify as Basque.
Ganuza likewise argues that the language must be specially protected, while cautioning against making it the sole measure. Ganuza says the next phase must focus on making sure international investment strengthens local companies rather than displacing them.
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