The main objective of FICMATUR is to create an inventory of the Madrid Region’s audiovisual heritage. Specifically, it focuses on demonstrating the potential that fictional images shot in the region have as a tourism resource, for their symbolic value and as a means for disseminating the region’s geographical, historical and natural heritage. At the same time, the project seeks to identify and study film locations as a narrative and expressive resource.

For this purpose, we have created a catalog of movies and fiction series produced in the Madrid Region since their very beginnings up to 2018. Drawing from that, we developed a ranking based on IMDb user ratings for each production. The highest-rated movies and series make up the corpus, which, through viewing, analyzing and geo-location of their scenes, has resulted in the creation of the Madrid Audiovisual Map, a map viewer of exterior locations and transportation infrastructures in the Madrid Region.

This corpus has made different qualitative analyses possible of the Madrid Region’s image in audiovisual production, in relation to its capacity to construct imaginaries. As such, it is essential to attend to Madrid’s audiovisual branding, in representing its spaces, as well as in its connections to displaying and disseminating these productions.

The information generated also enables creation of other mappings that, on one hand, foster analysis of geographical space as a narrative resource and the importance today of screen tourism in the Madrid Region and, on the other hand, facilitate design of cultural tours of potential interest for tourism.

Our team is made up of 21 researchers from diverse areas of knowledge (geography, audiovisual communication, tourism, library and information sciences, and information technology) from Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Universidad Rey Juan Carlos de Madrid, Universidad Camilo José Cela de Madrid, and Erasmus University, Rotterdam. We likewise are supported by collaboration from the Regional Library of Madrid, the City of Madrid Film Office, Film Madrid, 8madrid TV, Mercury Films, FlixOlé, the Regional Center for Geographical Information, and the Directorate General of Statistics, both from the Madrid Region.