New XXL cinema studios near Montpellier

• Two real estate heavyweights, urban planner GGL and promoter Spag, are carrying out a project to create XXL cinema studios in Saint-Gély du Fesc.

• This project is timely: France is sorely lacking in studios.

• While Netflix or Amazon Prime will undoubtedly find incredible natural settings in the area, until then there was no possibility of filming indoors.

Is the former Languedoc-Roussillon the new Hollywood? While three soap operas have already put their cameras in the region (

to

in Sète,

in Vendargues and

in Saint-Laurent-d'Aigouze) and that the shootings are multiplying in the area, now XXL studios are getting ready to emerge, north of Montpellier. For the moment, we do not know exactly when.

It is two real estate heavyweights, the urban planner GGL and the promoter Spag, who are carrying this project, in Saint-Gély du Fesc.

Its name: Pics Studio.

This site, which will bring together everything an audiovisual production company needs (film sets, production offices, premises for technical service providers, stock of sets and equipment, etc.), will be set up over 30,000 m2, in the south- is from this municipality of 10,000 inhabitants.

These studios are intended to attract "series, films, advertisements, French and foreign", confides Alain Guiraudon, the boss of GGL, which carries the project.

"It's the right tempo"

But “building studios is only possible if there is a real industrial ecosystem,” he continues. And in Montpellier, there are: there are actors, technicians, specialized schools, natural settings… "It's the right tempo", rejoices Alain Guiraudon. This project is timely: France is sorely lacking in studios. In 2019, a report from the CNC (National Center for Cinema and Animated Image) pointed to an “undersizing of French equipment compared to other European countries”, hampering the country's attractiveness in terms of large productions. This project, in Saint-Gély-du-Fesc, would thus make it possible to catch up with the French backlog in this area.

Montpellier is no exception. While Netflix or Amazon Prime will undoubtedly find incredible natural settings nearby, when they had to shoot in the studio, they couldn't. The only large sets in the former Languedoc-Roussillon are dedicated to the production of in-house series from TF1 or France Télévisions. Admittedly, the public service has already opened its studios in Vendargues to outside productions, in particular for the feature film

, directed by Cécilia Rouaud, but this remains rare.

"The explosion of platforms justifies the need to develop infrastructures like this one", confides Maxime Beaufey, member of Occitanie Films, the organization which hosts audiovisual productions in the region.

“As much as the daily series have their own studios and will continue to develop them, the external productions did not really have a tool at their disposal to develop their projects,” he continues.

Beyond the natural settings, we were losing days of filming, due to the lack of studios.

This project is very welcome.

"

Television

"Un si grand soleil": How the fake Tontons deceive the viewers

Television

How does Occitanie manage to attract so many TV series?

• Languedoc-Roussillon

• Filming

• Movie

• Television

• Montpellier

• 0 comment

• 0 share

  • Share on Messenger

  • Share on Facebook

  • Share on twitter

  • Share on Flipboard

  • Share on Pinterest

  • Share on Linkedin

  • Send by Mail

• To safeguard

• A fault ?

• To print