Category: Film
Latest Gran Canaria News, Views & Sunshine
The Canary Guide #WeekendTips 31 March – 2 April 2023
Mar, 2023 |
A glorious first weekend of April ahead and the beginning of the christian Holy Week “Semana Santa”, diligently observed in Spain. There will be many religious acts and processions throughout the week around the island, especially in the capital. Don’t forget it’s also April fools’ on Saturday even though it isn’t a tradition in Spain, there will be those who will take the whimsical opportunity for some hilarity. The Mercado Inglés is on at The British Club of Las Palmas and there is also an authentic Canarian rural fair to visit this weekend in the traditional mountain market town of San Mateo.
Gran Canaria Weather: Yellow Warnings – Up to 36ºC, in the shade, expected on the south, high temperatures with strong winds and calima expected to affect all The Canary Islands this week
Mar, 2023 |
The Spanish State Meterological Agency, AEMET, has issued yellow warnings for heat, calima haze and strong winds this week on the Canary Islands forecasting high temperatures of up to 34ºC expected on several islands. An alert has been issued due to a risk of forest fires on Gran Canaria as the mix of dry weather, strong winds and high temperatures has led to concerns over coming days.
Wild fires Alert on Gran Canaria this Wednesday, with temperatures set to exceed 34ºC in the shade
Mar, 2023 |
Springtime has only just begun and already the temperatures, in the shade, on Gran Canaria have been repeatedly hitting the low to mid-thirties, which brings with it also a rising risk of Forest Fires and Wildfires. Here in the Canary Islands forest fire crews are well versed in tackling an occasional mountain blaze, with alert levels often following the basic informal rule of thumb, the so-called 30/30/30 rule, putting the authorities on alert whenever the temperature is set to rise above 30ºC in the shade, the humidity levels drop below 30% and sustained winds are forecast at faster than 30kmph. Common sense and preparation help the general population to avoid injury in the event of a fire taking hold.
The Canary Guide #WeekendTips 24-26 March 2023
Mar, 2023 |
Plum tree blossoming in Tenteniguada March 2023
It’s the last weekend of March already and Spring is here; winter is behind us and the summer weather is already hotting up on Gran Canaria. The hillsides are in full bloom, particularly up in the mountain summits; it’s Carnival Weekend in Arguineguín and the last of the carnival festivities for this year are happening around the island. With summer just around the corner, clocks Spring forward this Saturday and Sunday night when 1am becomes 2am 🕐. On the north of the island, one of the biggest seasonal trade fairs is happening, gathering produce and people from 11 municipalities, ENORTE will be celebrated in the historic Rum capital of the island, Arucas, this weekend.
Gran Canaria Weather: Temperatures of 31ºC in the shade and slight calima as we head towards a warm spring weekend
Mar, 2023 |
Its a perfect Gran Canaria springtime weekend ahead with light calima sands blowing in from the Sahara, temperatures in the shade of 31ºC, light breezes and blue skies. Remember too the clocks spring forward by an hour this weekend.

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Movie and television production on the Canary Islands has more than doubled
Mar, 2023 | Economy, employment, Film
The shooting of movies and television series in the Canary Islands have doubled over the course of 2022 and now far exceeds the figures recorded for 2021, which were the highest to date. More national and international productions, more investment and more direct hiring of technical and artistic professionals are the three most notable milestones reached over this period. All is touted as a direct result of a successful strategy that has managed to increase the already favourable tax advantages for productions coming to the archipelago, as well as the necessary inter-institutional collaborations that facilitate the development of this industry.
• The best data in history in a sector that last year generated 15,300 contracts for technical and artistic professionals from the islands, double the number in 2021»
• In 2022 there were 164 national and international productions across all the islands
Final season of Tom Clancy’s ‘Jack Ryan’ will also be filming on Gran Canaria’s wild west coast, in La Aldea de San Nicolás
The production crew making the fourth season of Tom Clancy’s American political action thriller series, Jack Ryan, have been filming on the southeast of Gran Canaria, and are about to head west to La Aldea de San Nicolás to continue with location shoots for what has been revealed, by Hollywood news and gossip portal Deadline, to be likely the last season of the series starring John Krasinski in the title role. Don’t expect to see any of these familiar terrains on your screens any time soon though, as fans of the franchise, broadcast on Amazon’s Prime Video streaming platform, are still awaiting the imminent launch of Season 3, scheduled for this coming October.
Canarian production company Seven Islands have been providing production services, here on the island, and have chosen the westernmost municipality as one of the several natural settings where the action will progress, with the team expected to arrive between 20-23 May specifically on the main beach La Playa, Rubén Díaz Park, the famous El Charco and the fishing port pier, whose images will be projected internationally in one of the biggest such shoots of the year.
Filming looks set to take place in the fourth week of May, so members of the team are expected in the municipality from this week and for the rest of the month. “In addition to the promotion that La Aldea will get, the fact that the series is being shot here generates economic [benefits], as the team of 300 will generate incomes throughout the local fabric of production and economic [activity],” said the La Aldea Mayor highlighting the importance, for this coastal enclave, of the production choosing their town to be included as a backdrop for the shoot.
The production team are known to have planned various sequences at sea, on beaches, jungle-like and urban city environments, as well as in colonial houses, hotels, and various street scenes…, which will take place in various areas of Gran Canaria including Castillo del Romeral and Meloneras, as well as on the Island of Tenerife.
Prime series, Tom Clancy’s ‘Jack Ryan’, filming on the south of Gran Canaria
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Prime series, Tom Clancy’s ‘Jack Ryan’, filming on the south of Gran Canaria
May, 2022 | Community, Film, Local Council, News
Various enclaves of the southern municipality of San Bartolomé de Tirajana on Gran Canaria will be the setting for the shooting of a fourth season of the popular series broadcast by a well-known streaming platform, Tom Clancy’s ‘Jack Ryan’, starring the American actor John Krasinski, who plays a CIA analyst with specialist skills.
For approximately 45 days, a large film crew will travel to areas including Castillo del Romeral and Meloneras. Local mayor Conchi Narváez told press “our municipality will once again project its image internationally as a set for large audiovisual productions such as this one, as it qualifies as one of the great productions of the year that will include our Archipelago as a natural setting,”.
Precisely, in order to facilitate the development of this action series, broadcast on the Amazon Prime Video platform, the Consistory has published an Edict warning the population living in Castillo del Romeral not to be alarmed by the simulated movie “detonations” that are planned for this southeast coastal enclave during the days when filming will take place.
On May 3, the Consistory made public a proclamation warning of plans relating to ‘Noise and Use of Pyrotechnics’. Specifically, and in order for the population to have all the right information, the detonations will be both during the day and/or at night, starting this Monday, the 9th, 10th, 11th, 12th, 13th, 14th, 15th, 16th, 17th, 18th, May 19, 20, 24 and 25, 2022.
As stated by the Municipal Edict, “noise disturbances may be suffered from the actions that will be recorded in the surroundings of the port, such as small explosions and shots.”
Subsequently, as of May 15, there will be some total and intermittent closures to road traffic, turning off public lighting and the introduction of parking limitations in various streets around the coastal neighbourhood.
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Maritime Rescue operations have increased this week, with all indicators pointing to greater numbers attempting the crossing by boat in 2021
Mar, 2021 | #TheCanaryMigrantCrisis, Demonstration, Editor's Thoughts, Film, Government, Immigrants, Immigration, Maspalomas, Migrants Gran Canaria, Mogán, News, Police, politics, Transport, Transport
As the springtime arrives and the weather becomes less hostile, so The Canary Islands, and the 100km+ stretch of ocean separating us from the African coast, are likely once again to become the focus of Maritime Rescue operations in an increasing trend toward irregular migration that is good for no-one, not The Canary Islands, not the currently absent tourists, not the residents, not the governments, not the police, not the EU, and least of all, the migrants themselves. After last year’s huge increase in patera arrivals many had hoped we had already lived through the worst of a situation about which we were being forewarned as early as summer 2019.
Search and Rescue flight path on Wednesday
All the current indicators, however, point to a further increase in migrant arrivals this year, and even after Spain’s and Europe’s failure to properly prepare, and their subsequently inadequate response in 2020, many fear the worst is still yet to come. Gran Canaria’s Sasemar 103 Maritime Rescue (Salvamento Maritimo) aircraft have once more located boats adrift this week, the latest carrying about 40 people on board who were about 81.5 nautical miles (149 kilometres) southwest of Maspalomas (Gran Canaria). It follows the rescues of nearly 100 others, including women and children, in the preceding days, many of whom were in need of critical medical attention.
Salvamar de Salvamento Marítimo
Once found, the maritime rescue sent their Guardamar Concepción Arenal vessel to the area where the boat was located – a journey of about three hours to reach the exact point -, which also meant alerting a passing ship, which was in the area, the ‘Alicia’, to request they approach the migrant boat to help keep track of its movement and the people onboard. The prevailing currents in the area travel away from The Canary Islands, had they not been spotted they almost certainly would have perished in the open ocean as many do, without a trace, and without anyone ever knowing what has happened.
The maritime rescue Sasemar 103 has continued to search the stretch of water between Africa and the Canary Islands, Europes most dangerous migratory route, in the hope of locating any more boats that may be adrift, as this one was found only after several warnings about various vessels that have left the coast of Africa in recent days, although currently maritime rescuers do not know how many might still be found. Another one was rescued on Tuesday night not far from Gran Canaria.
Editor’s Thoughts:
While many oppose migration in open boats to The Canary Islands (practically no-one supports it) particularly following a 750% increase in arrivals during 2020, simply put, it is a fact that we are having to deal with. There is literally no way to stop people risking their lives unless we invest longterm in improving their situations in their countries of origin. Failure to do so is to simply accept that people in poverty will always try to find ways out of poverty. We need to help them do that, or they will try to find any way they can with or without us, and that means more arrivals without any control.
Indeed there are those who oppose any type of maritime rescue efforts to prevent loss of life, but really, is there anything anyone can do in the short to medium term to stop would-be migrants from getting into rickety boats, often overloaded and not fit for purpose, in their attempts to escape the effects of climate change, poverty, hardship, oppression and conflict in Africa? Those adrift that we don’t rescue are simply never heard from again. Their failure is simply no deterrent, just letting people die does not stop others from trying, as the information is never heard by others who, rightly or wrongly, think the potential improvement to their lives worth more than wasting away in the place they were born.
All indicators so far this year point to an even greater increase in maritime migration in 2021, with more than double last year’s numbers, the second highest number of arrivals in history, already having been registered during the first two and a half months of this year compared to the same period last year.
Anti-immigration protesters have focused on the temporary use of empty tourist hotels, as accommodation, in recent months, while internment camps were being constructed to try to deal with the large numbers who had already arrived. Almost all migrants that were briefly accommodated in otherwise empty hotels on the south of Gran Canaria have now been moved into camps to await deportation, or those with asylum claims (less than 10%) transferred to the mainland. A further protest against migrant arrivals has been organised for Saturday the 20th March, where organisers will attempt to create a “human chain”, asking participants to all dress in white, in order to try to send some sort of public message about their dissatisfaction concerning people trying to come here in the first place. The actual message behind the demonstration is not really very clear yet, though the event will apparently be filmed from a helicopter and so we are expecting a video production to subsequently make clear the organisers intentions.
While 23,023 individuals were recorded arriving by boat last year, all mostly stuck on the islands due to COVID restrictions closing down international travel, stopping repatriation or deportations, more than 17,000 of those arrived in the last four months of the year. There were many who feared that large numbers of people unable to continue on their journeys towards mainland Europe would result in mass criminality, however crime actually went down last year, with a total of just 122 crimes involving migrants having been recorded in the 80 days prior to January 20th, 65 of those being falsified documents, and another 45 of those related to “security” issues having resulted from altercations among the migrants themselves. While there have been some isolated cases of young migrants allegedly stealing booze from local businesses, and at least one accusation of serious sexual assault, all of which have resulted in immediate arrests and investigations, in general there has been little by way of trouble, with the exception of an occasional social media hoax, several false reports and a few would-be vigilantes with knives trying to present an atmosphere of mayhem, where there is none.
Irregular migrants, with nothing to do, and not allowed to leave the islands, have certainly been more visible, in the absence of any tourists for the last year. While many have few if any resources, there are those of them who have enough support to survive a few months. They receive no financial aid, and so quickly become dependent on the reception network, where they wait in hope, slowly realising that 90% or more of them will be told to return to their points of origin without ever getting to mainland Europe.
Small numbers of residents in the south have certainly felt less secure, many women report feeling intimidated by groups of young men hanging around the streets. However there have been very few actual incidents. To try to allay public fears, about 40 extra Policia Nacional were drafted in to police the situation more visibly, and 20 or so of our specialist Guardia Civil tactical response unit, GRS8 based on Tenerife, were posted twice to the south of the Gran Canaria to ensure a very visible presence on the streets, however they have primarily been relegated to traffic controls and stop and search duties. One GRS8 officer consulted (not an official spokesperson) directly told The Canary News “Right now we are mainly here to help Canarian citizens and foreign residents to feel safer. Though we have been called to isolated incidents, our skill sets have not been required, so we observe and make sure that we are visible to the population, carrying out patrols and traffic stops. There is not a serious security issue right now on Gran Canaria, it is more public relations to keep everyone calm.”
By far the biggest concern so far has been the handling of unaccompanied minors, more than 2,600 of whom are currently under the care of the regional government’s child protection services, with very little support having yet materialised from mainland Spain, with the exception of some extra finances, and wholly inadequate facilities being used to accommodate the youths among residents living in empty tourist resort towns.
Like it or lump it, we face an even larger influx of migrant arrivals this year, and therefore maritime rescue operations. Everyone, including Spain’s own recent Ombudsman’s report, agrees that the response has been wholly inadequate, and we as a society need to improve how we deal with the reality of something that cannot be easily stopped in the short term. We face the potential of a quickly growing crisis, primarily humanitarian, here on Europe’s southernmost maritime border, if Spain’s central government and the EU do not act quickly to ensure that this archipelago does not become a prison, for both irregular migrants, and residents alike over the coming months.
With growing unemployment and an economy in free fall we can expect more tension from the resident population who see increasing migration as an existential threat on top of so many other calamities over which they have little or no control. This will take a lot of energy and many years to effectively overcome, but right now we need to calmly deal with the realities of the situation. We either work together to get through it, or more angry voices, offering no real solutions, continue to polarise our communities.
Edward Timon.:. Editor
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The Canary News
Spectacular El Hierro rockslide caught on camera in The Canary Islands on Monday March 15 2021
Mar, 2021 | Environment, Film, Natural World, News
A spectacular rockslide has been caught on camera in The Canary Islands, this time on the island of El Hierro, when rocks and debris fell from a high cliff in an area known as El Golfo, located in the municipality of Frontera. The exact site of the rockfall is known as the ‘Fuga de Tibataje’.
It is a very rugged, isolated and uninhabited area on the sweeping western north coast of this western-most island. Fortunately, at the time of the rockslide there were no people in the area and no one has been reported injured. Landslides here can be quite frequent, due to the volcanic and geological formations of the rock structures in the area with sheer cliffs descending from high altitude on this active volcanic island. Residents say they do not remember any similar landslides as spectacular as this one.
In the images recorded by locals in the area large amounts of debris crumbles to the foot of the cliff without any reported damage to nearby homes or the nearest access road.
A similar episode was also caught on camera, last November on a neighbouring island. There an impressive avalanche of rocks also fell from a cliff onto a beach, known as Argaga, on the west coast of the island of La Gomera, in Valle Gran Rey and the rockslide was caught on camera by terrified tourists. More than 1 million visitors came to see and share the video.
In this case, agents were deployed to the scene and a tracking operation initiated to check if anyone could have been trapped behind the debris. Fortunately, no injuries appear to have resulted from the rockfall.
El Hierro is the archipelago’s youngest island and in 2012 was the scene of a major submarine volcanic eruption off the south coast following weeks of seismic swarms caused by thousands of earth tremors.
Spectacular, wild and tranquil, this island still has plenty of volcanic activity and two interpretation centres where you can visit and find out more about the evolution of the Canary Islands, as it happens
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The Canary News
Marvel considering Canary Islands for next blockbuster “The Eternals”
Jun, 2019 | Events & Leisure, Film
Several outlets have reported that Marvel are seriously considering 3 of The Canary Islands as possible locations for their next big production, set to start shooting in the Autumn. The production is likely to be the upcoming adaptation of Jack Kirby’s 1976 graphic series “The Eternals” and with names as big as Salma Hayek Pinault, Angelina Jolie, Richard Madden of “Game of Thrones” and “Bodyguard” fame, and Kumail Nanjiani, best known for “The Big sick” and “Silicon Valley”, many are getting excited about yet another blockbuster being filmed here.
In the original stories, The Eternals are God-like beings who live among humans, to whom they are related, and protect them from the evil Deviants, who are also distant cousins. The earth dwelling group lived in a hidden city, Olympia, at the foot of Mount Olympus and were led by Ikaris, (who when not publicly fighting evil uses the name Ike Harris) and his partner Sersi (who crafts illusions and moves objects with her telekinetic powers), working together with Makarri (who specialises in super speed), and Thena (who manipulates cosmic energy to shoot beams of heat and light). A brave new Marvel world indeed….
Although there have been no official confirmations yet, with a deal yet to be signed, many Marvel fans are already looking to book flights in the hope of getting up close and personal with Marvels newest franchise and superstar cast.
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The Canary Guide
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Curated news stories for English speakers who #LoveGranCanaria The Canary News, Views & Sunshine - Est. 2009