BRITISH Royal family saga The Crown is due to enter its fifth season – and will be swapping the streets of London for the Plaza de América, and Sandringham for Sevilla.
The long-running Netflix series is based upon the real UK aristocracy and actual events, but necessarily dramatised and twisted for 'entertainment' purposes, as the producers are swift to point out.
Now that the story, which started generations ago, is gradually reaching the present day and likely to open relatively recent wounds, such as the marriage and split of Prince Charles and Princess Diana and the latter's sudden death 24 years ago when their boys were still young teenagers, The Crown either has to stick rigidly to known and documented facts, or lean more towards genuine drama and poetic licence with huge disclaimers to ensure viewers do not take it as gospel.
In recent months, though, media reports have stated Prince Charles and his wife Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall watch the show avidly and are very conscious of its value as entertainment rather than history – and rumour has it that Queen Elizabeth II has always enjoyed it.
And the next season will be partly filmed in Spain, although details of the scenes in question have not yet been revealed.
All anyone really knows at the moment is that a set and production station have been installed in Sevilla's beautiful Plaza de América, one of the Andalucía city's key attractions.
Culture and tourism councillor Antonio Muñoz paid an official visit to the set-up today (Friday, October 1), meeting with production company Palma Pictures and chatting to The Crown's executive producer Yousaf Bokhari, expressing his appreciation on behalf of the city authorities and residents for having chosen Sevilla to shoot scenes in a series watched by hundreds of millions of people worldwide.
The Crown is at least the second Netflix series to have been filmed on location in Sevilla, although likely to be the most famous for some time to come, even if dozens more follow on its heels.
Sevilla Film Office has been set up on the back of these – a dedicated department that deals with paperwork and licensing needed for on-location scene-shooting and which offers advice to actual and potential TV and cinema production firms, those which are considering Sevilla and those which already have concrete plans to start the cameras rolling.
Many towns, villages and cities in Spain have a Film Office, either in permanent use or opened when specifically needed, for when they are used for scenes in silver-screen or television productions.
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