UNESCO's City of Film project is part of the wider Creative Cities Network.
Film is one of seven creative fields in the Network, the others: Crafts and Folk Art, Design, Gastronomy, Literature, Media Arts, and Music. [1]
To be approved as a City of Film, cities need to meet a number of criteria set by UNESCO. [2]
Designated UNESCO Cities of Film share similar characteristics:
In 2009, Bradford became the first film city—with Sydney joining in 2010. [3] [4]
Sydney is home to Fox Studios Australia, the studio that brought The Matrix trilogy , The Great Gatsby , and The Wolverine to life. Sydney's "pristine beaches" and "lush mountains" can also provide a backdrop for location shooting. [5]
Busan hosts an annual International Film Festival and is a "standard-setter" in the film world. [6]
Bristol is home to the Academy award-winning Aardman Animations. It is also home to The Bottle Yard Studios and the BBC Natural History Unit. [7] [8]
Bristol is "packed with history and full of character," Yamagata is a "pleasant, bustling rural capital." [9] [10]
Yamagata hosts every two years an International Documentary Film Festival.
Potsdam is home to Babelsberg Studio, the largest film studio in Germany. It is also home to Film Park of Babelsberg and Film University of Babelsberg.
Mumbai is home to Hindi cinema.
There are 21 Cities of Film, spanning 18 countries and four continents.
14 are from Europe, four from Asia, two from Oceania and one from South America.
Poland, Spain and the United Kingdom are the only countries to have two member cities.
The Cities of Film are:
| City | Country | Year of Inscription |
|---|---|---|
| Asaba |  Nigeria | 2023 [11] |
| Bitola |  North Macedonia | 2015 [12] |
| Bradford |  United Kingdom | 2009 [13] |
| Bristol | United Kingdom | 2017 [7] |
| Busan |  South Korea | 2014 [6] |
| Cannes |  France | 2021 [14] |
| Cluj-Napoca |  Romania | 2021 [15] |
| Galway |  Ireland | 2014 [16] |
| Gdynia |  Poland | 2021 [17] |
| Kathmandu |  Nepal | 2023 [11] |
| Łódź | Poland | 2017 [18] |
| Mumbai |  India | 2019 [19] |
| Ouarzazate |  Morocco | 2023 [11] |
| Penedo |  Brazil | 2023 [11] |
| Potsdam |  Germany | 2019 [20] |
| Qingdao |  China | 2017 [21] |
| Rome |  Italy | 2015 [22] |
| Santos | Brazil | 2015 [23] |
| Sarajevo |  Bosnia and Herzegovina | 2019 [24] |
| Sofia |  Bulgaria | 2014 [25] |
| Sydney |  Australia | 2010 [5] |
| Terrassa |  Spain | 2017 [26] |
| Valladolid | Spain | 2019 [27] |
| Vicente López |  Argentina | 2023 [11] |
| Wellington |  New Zealand | 2019 [28] |
| Yamagata |  Japan | 2017 [29] |
Potsdam is the capital and largest city of the German state of Brandenburg. It is part of the Berlin/Brandenburg Metropolitan Region. Potsdam sits on the River Havel, a tributary of the Elbe, downstream of Berlin, and lies embedded in a hilly morainic landscape dotted with many lakes, around 20 of which are located within Potsdam's city limits. It lies some 25 kilometres southwest of Berlin's city centre. The name of the city and of many of its boroughs are of Slavic origin.
Busan, officially Busan Metropolitan City, is South Korea's second most populous city after Seoul, with a population of over 3.4 million inhabitants as of 2017. Formerly romanized as Pusan, it is the economic, cultural and educational center of southeastern South Korea, with its port being South Korea's busiest and the sixth-busiest in the world. The surrounding "Southeastern Maritime Industrial Region" is South Korea's largest industrial area. The large volumes of port traffic and urban population in excess of 1 million make Busan a Large-Port metropolis using the Southampton System of Port-City classification.
The National Science and Media Museum, located in Bradford, West Yorkshire, is part of the national Science Museum Group in the UK. The museum has seven floors of galleries with permanent exhibitions focusing on photography, television, animation, videogaming, the Internet and the scientific principles behind light and colour. It also hosts temporary exhibitions and maintains a collection of 3.5 million pieces in its research facility.
Jeonju is the capital and largest city of North Jeolla Province, South Korea. It is both urban and rural due to the closeness of Wanju County which almost entirely surrounds Jeonju. It is an important tourist center famous for Korean food, historic buildings, sports activities, and innovative festivals.
Tsuruoka is a city in Yamagata Prefecture, Japan. As of 31 January 2020, the city had an estimated population of 125,389 in 49,024 households, and a population density of 95.74 persons per km². The total area of the city is 1,311.53 square kilometres. Tsuruoka is the biggest city in Tōhoku region in terms of land area.
DEFA was the state-owned film studio of the German Democratic Republic throughout the country's existence.
A resident of Mumbai is called a Mumbaikar. People prefer to stay close to a railway station for easy access to the metropolis. Many city-dwellers lead a fast-paced life with very little time for other activities owing to a significant amount of time spent on daily commuting.
The Lonely Island is an American comedy trio, formed by Andy Samberg, Jorma Taccone, and Akiva Schaffer in Berkeley, California, in 2001. They have written for and starred in the American TV program Saturday Night Live (SNL).
Watershed opened in June 1982 as the United Kingdom's first dedicated media centre. Based in former warehouses on the harbourside at Bristol, it hosts three cinemas, a café/bar, events/conferencing spaces, the Pervasive Media Studio, and office spaces for administrative and creative staff. It occupies the former E and W sheds on Canon's Road at Saint Augustine's Reach, and underwent a major refurbishment in 2005. The building also hosts UWE eMedia Business Enterprises, Most of Watershed's facilities are situated on the second floor of two of the transit sheds. The conference spaces and cinemas are used by many public and private sector organisations and charities. Watershed employs the equivalent of over seventy full-time staff and has an annual turnover of approximately £3.8 million. As well as its own commercial income, Watershed Arts Trust is funded by national and regional arts funders.
The economy of Berlin is dominated by the service sector, with around 84% of all companies doing business in services. Important economic sectors in Berlin include life sciences, transportation, information and communication technologies, media and music, advertising and design, biotechnology, environmental services, construction, e-commerce, retail, hotel business, and medical engineering.
Babelsberg is the largest quarter of Potsdam, the capital city of the German state of Brandenburg. The neighbourhood is named after a small hill on the Havel river. It is the location of Babelsberg Palace and Park, part of the Palaces and Parks of Potsdam and Berlin UNESCO World Heritage Site, as well as Babelsberg Studio, a historical centre of the German film industry and the first large-scale movie studio in the world.
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Berlin is recognized as a world city of culture and creative industries. Numerous cultural institutions, many of which enjoy international reputation are representing the diverse heritage of the city. Many young people, cultural entrepreneurs and international artists continue to settle in the city. Berlin has established itself as a popular nightlife and entertainment center in Europe.
Berlin is a major media centre in Germany and Europe.
The Konrad Wolf Film University of Babelsberg is the oldest and largest film school in Germany. The university offers undergraduate, graduate, as well as post-graduate studies in all fields of the process of filmmaking. In addition, it is the only art school in Brandenburg, situated together with the Babelsberg Film Studio in Babelsberg.
Cinespace Film Studios is a series of film studio facilities in the US and Canada, founded in 1988 by Greek-Canadian Nick Mirkopoulos. The studios began with a facility in Vaughan, that had been in operation since the 1960s. Current studios include facilities in Toronto; a branch in Chicago, founded in 2007 with Mirkopoulos's nephew Alex Pissios; and, facilities in Atlanta and Wilmington, NC acquired in 2023 from EUE/Screen Gems. In 2022, TPG Real Estate Partners acquired the facilities of Studio Babelsberg in Potsdam-Babelsberg and merged those into Cinespace
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