El Prat de Llobregat is being highlighted as one of the municipalities around Barcelona with an established place in cinema, at a time when Catalonia’s film and television industry is growing and drawing productions beyond the city centre. For El Prat residents and businesses, that matters because more shoots in and around the municipality can mean temporary street occupation, local commercial activity and greater visibility for places outside Barcelona itself.
The wider context is a sector that invoiced €9,120 million in Catalonia in 2024, the latest available data, according to a study by Acció, the Generalitat’s business competitiveness agency, together with the Clúster Audiovisual de Catalunya and the Institut Català de les Empreses Culturals (ICEC). The same study says the sector employed 44,986 people in 2024 and accounted for 2.9% of Catalonia’s GDP.
The original reporting, published by El Periódico Barcelona on Friday 11 July, says that while Barcelona remains the main attraction for filming, nearby cities including El Prat have also spent years positioning themselves as strong bases for audiovisual production.
El Prat’s role in a sector centred on Barcelona
The concentration of the industry around Barcelona helps explain why municipalities such as El Prat are being used and promoted as filming locations. According to the Acció study cited by Ara and Europa Press, 87% of Catalonia’s audiovisual companies are based in the province of Barcelona, and 57% are in the city of Barcelona itself.
That concentration has not stopped filming activity spreading into neighbouring areas, especially where directors need industrial spaces, transport infrastructure, urban fringes or locations that look different from central Barcelona. El Prat, next to Barcelona and close to the airport and the Llobregat delta, fits into that wider production map.
“Catalonia plays in a demanding first division,” Jaume Baró of Acció said during the presentation of the latest sector study ahead of ISE 2026 at Fira de Barcelona’s Gran Via venue.
ISE 2026, the Integrated Systems Europe trade fair, is due to run from 3 to 6 February at the Gran Via site of Fira de Barcelona. The annual study presented before the fair describes a sector with more than 4,000 companies, including 380 startups, which Acció says is more than double the number of five years ago.
Record film production adds to demand for locations
The push for more filming locations comes as Catalan production continues to break records. Ara reported that 114 qualified films were reached in 2024, while an Acadèmia del Cinema Català report cited by EFE said 2025 set a new record with 124 feature films involving Catalan production companies.
According to that 2025 report, those 124 films were 8.8% more than the year before, and Catalan productions attracted more than 4.5 million cinema-goers in Spain. Co-productions remained the dominant model, with 93 of the 124 films made as co-productions, including 47 international co-productions.
The same report said 58% of the films analysed had budgets in the €1 million to €4 million range, and 142 Catalan production companies took part in feature filmmaking in 2025, 18 more than the previous year.
- 2024 audiovisual turnover in Catalonia: €9,120 million
- 2024 employment in the sector: 44,986 people
- 2025 qualified feature films with Catalan participation: 124
- Cinema admissions in Spain for those films: more than 4.5 million
What local residents and firms may notice
For people in El Prat, the practical effect of this trend is less about industry statistics and more about how filming shows up locally: road or pavement occupation during shoots, more service demand for catering and logistics, and a stronger case for the municipality as a screen location in future productions.
For production companies planning shoots in the Barcelona area, the Barcelona Film Commission sets out the procedure for fee reductions for occupying public roads, one of the routine administrative issues involved in filming on location.
El Periódico’s report places El Prat within a broader shift in which Catalonia is not only increasing production volume but also using a wider range of municipalities as recognisable film settings. The latest confirmed benchmark remains the Acció study for 2024, which records €9,120 million in turnover and 44,986 jobs in the Catalan audiovisual sector.
Reported by Source Text Link, Xavi Serra, Albert Rigol, europapress.es, EFE, Barcelona Catalonia, John Hopewell, lavanguardia.com, Puri Caro, 20M, barcelonaaldia.com, catalannews.com, bcncatfilmcommission.com, Markus Ruf, catalunya.com, thefilmverdict.com, Emiliano De Pablos, À.G., El Periódico Barcelona.
