Spanish cinema taxes: subsidy or flop?
The new trailer for a publicly funded Spanish comedy has reignited the debate over how taxes are spent. Is this kind of cinema worth paying for?
English · Original discussion in Spanish · Published
The Spanish cinema you pay for with your taxes: not even free is worth it
The trailer for the new Spanish comedy funded with public money has peine the age-old debate: are we paying for rubbish with our taxes? The film, which bills itself as a defence of inclusion, has been met with a mix of indifference and rejection. The jokes, according to early reviews, are the same old ones: WhatsApp sketches and slapstick humour. But the most striking thing is not the plot—which barely exists—but the reaction: a popular outcry calling for the cultural VAT to be raised to 38% so that this kind of production stops being profitable.
The formula for guaranteed failure
The pattern repeats itself: a trailer with the only funny moments, and the rest is filler. As the analyses point out, the best of the film fits into two minutes; the rest is canned laughter and forced situations. The comparison with 'Campeones', a critical and commercial hit, is inevitable. But this new instalment seems to have forgotten the formula: it is not enough to put people with disabilities in front of the camera if the script is a disaster. The result is a product that not even its defenders can be bothered to watch in full.
Everyone's money, nobody's fun
The question of whether it is really paid for with taxes remains open, but the shadow of Spanish film subsidies looms over the project. While some call for the film to be burned and its creators charged retroactively, others point out that Spanish cinema has had international successes. The problem is not the subsidy, but where the money goes: when public money is used to repeat the same jokes from twenty years ago, taxpayers have the right to wonder whether it would not have been better spent on something else.
With the same old recipe, this film seems destined for oblivion. But perhaps its greatest legacy will be reopening the debate on how cultural productions are financed in Spain. While politicians promise to change the model, the trailer remains there, a monument to subsidised mediocrity.
The trailer for the new Spanish comedy funded with public money has peine the age-old debate: are we paying for rubbish with our taxes? The film, which bills itself as a defence of inclusion, has been met with a mix of indifference and rejection. The jokes, according to early reviews, are the same old ones: WhatsApp sketches and slapstick humour. But the most striking thing is not the plot—which barely exists—but the reaction: a popular outcry calling for the cultural VAT to be raised to 38% so that this kind of production stops being profitable.
The formula for guaranteed failure
The pattern repeats itself: a trailer with the only funny moments, and the rest is filler. As the analyses point out, the best of the film fits into two minutes; the rest is canned laughter and forced situations. The comparison with 'Campeones', a critical and commercial hit, is inevitable. But this new instalment seems to have forgotten the formula: it is not enough to put people with disabilities in front of the camera if the script is a disaster. The result is a product that not even its defenders can be bothered to watch in full.
Everyone's money, nobody's fun
The question of whether it is really paid for with taxes remains open, but the shadow of Spanish film subsidies looms over the project. While some call for the film to be burned and its creators charged retroactively, others point out that Spanish cinema has had international successes. The problem is not the subsidy, but where the money goes: when public money is used to repeat the same jokes from twenty years ago, taxpayers have the right to wonder whether it would not have been better spent on something else.
With the same old recipe, this film seems destined for oblivion. But perhaps its greatest legacy will be reopening the debate on how cultural productions are financed in Spain. While politicians promise to change the model, the trailer remains there, a monument to subsidised mediocrity.
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Summary of a discussion on Burbuja.info - Foro de economía, actualidad y política., translated from Spanish and reviewed before publication. Read the full discussion (28 replies).
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