FEATURE SOUTHERN EUROPE
ALON HATTINGH “THERE WAS A SUDDEN SPLASH ON THE SURFACE AND UP CAME A 3,500-YEAR-OLD AMPHORA, FOLLOWED BY MORE AND MORE MARKER BUOYS, WITH MORE AND MORE AMPHORAS”
Europe and the Middle East. And of course, Malta has 300 days of sunshine a year.” Hattingh recalls a shoot off the coast of Gozo, Malta’s sister island, for a production involving sunken treasure: “We were a small team of camera divers, as the location was secret and very, very deep. We had tried day after day to head out, but the waves were too high to do the dives safely. After three days of waiting, the weather finally cleared. It was September and we set off very early, before sunrise, but it took some time to get to the marked location.” Once in place, the divers started their descent to the seabed while, on the boat, the rest of the crew waited — and waited. “It seemed to take forever but then, all of a sudden, a marker buoy popped up indicating that something was coming up,” Hattingh says “We waited another 10 minutes and there was a sudden splash on the surface. Up came a 3,500-year-old amphora, followed by more and more marker buoys, with more and more amphoras. And, best of all, the camera crew had got all the shots they needed. As much as Malta is the result of a cultural mix stretching back thousands of years, so in its own way is Croatia. As Tanja Ladovic Blazevic, co-ordinator at Filming in Croatia, puts it: “Croatia is a small and utterly unique country formed by so many different influences, because it’s situated at the crossroads of Central Europe, the Balkans and the Mediterranean. Its turbulent history goes back to the Roman era and continues through the Renaissance, the Baroque period, the Ottoman conquests and the communist regime following the Second World War, up to the present day.” Croatia can be divided into three geographically distinct
tions include German TV series Beat, Belgian feature film Torpedo and Russian production One Breath. “And we’ve also worked with a number of game shows, including The Bravest Couple and Superstars,” Guillaumier adds. One of the biggest projects to film in Malta in the last year was a Bollywood production called Bharat, featuring Indian superstar Salman Khan. “This was the second Bollywood project to shoot in Malta in as many years, and cements our reputation as a film destination for the Indian market,” Guillaumier says. “Bharat stands out because it featured a number of mass dance sequences in various Maltese locations, which have proved to be very effective as a vehicle for screen tourism.” He adds: “These days, Malta is attracting business from all over the world, including the US, Europe, Russia and, of course, India. We have also had a number of enquiries from China and we are optimistic about further expanding our reach into the Australian and Canadian markets.” According to Alon Hattingh, executive producer at Rock Productions Malta, it is the people and the weather that help to make the island special: “The Maltese are a super cultural mix from all over
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