Filming in European Cities: The Labor of Location

Filming in European Cities explores the effort behind creating screen production locations. Ipek A. Celik Rappas accounts the rising demand for original and affordable locations for screen projects due to the growth of streaming platforms. As a result, screen professionals are repeatedly tasked with chores such as transforming a former factory in Istanbul to resemble a war zone in Aleppo, or finding a London street that evokes Barcelona.

Celik Rappas highlights the pivotal role crew members play in transforming cities and locations into functional screen settings. Examining five European media capitals―Athens, Belfast, Berlin, Istanbul, and Paris―the book delves into the overlooked aspects of location-related screen labor and its ability to generate production value. Filming in European Cities demonstrates that in its perpetual quest for authentic filming locations, the screen industry extracts value from cities and neighborhoods, their marginalized residents, and screen labor, enriching itself through this triple exploitation.

Ipek A. Celik Rappas is Associate Professor in Media and Visual Arts at Koç University, Istanbul. Her research explores media and marginalized communities in Europe, and the relationship between media labor, production, and space. She is the author of In Permanent Crisis.