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López Sintas – The unanticipated consequences of the “Miró Law” and its negative impact on the Spanish film industry

López Sintas, J. (2023). The unanticipated consequences of the “Miró Law” and its negative impact on the Spanish film industry

According to its preamble, the “Miró Law” was intended as an ambitious effort to rationalize financing in the Spanish film industry and to enhance the quality of cinematic production. The law established a system for financing films via subsidies calculated based on their anticipated box office returns. Successful films were expected to add funds to the initiative’s overall budget. While motivated by laudable goals, the Miró Law was a tremendous failure in practice. Dubious methods for predicting box office success and political favouritism, coupled with biased professional and cinematic standards of quality that favoured academic cinema, drained the resources dedicated to the project at an alarming rate and ended up eroding, rather than enhancing, the popularity of Spanish films. The unmistakable consequence of the new financing system was that it brought an end to the era of producing low-budget and quick-turnaround films. The considerable rise in production costs led to a reorganization of the film industry in a manner that benefitted famous director-producers (these roles were mixed) to the detriment of more modest cinematic productions and the overall variety of Spanish films.