Perched on top of the Sceberras peninsula, Valletta presents an excellent theatrical film set, and has over the centuries acted as a backdrop for war, trade, colonial rivalries and victories.

Final pitch this week

With this in mind, the theme of film-making is being used by the Valletta 2018 Foundation to pitch Valletta’s bid to become European Capital of Culture (ECOC) in 2018.

For the past two years, the foundation has been gearing up for this bid, developing ideas for its 2018 cultural programme, and coming up with new proposals.

Valletta’s candidature, which is being supported by all localities in Malta and Gozo, was presented last October by Valletta Mayor Alexei Dingli to the Culture Minister.

An application was filed with the ECOC panel of judges and in January the bid passed the pre-selection stage.

Since then, the Valletta 2018 Foundation developed its ideas further and will this week be presenting its final pitch. The evaluating panel will meet again in mid-October for the final selection meeting.

The final bid loosely follows the theme of film-making. Although film-making is known as a big-budget creative sector that involves a few highly skilled people, nowadays hand-held devices give everyone the potential to explore their creativity in film.

V.18 is trying to show that Malta can nurture creative careers in sectors usually considered beyond our reach.

It will also bring together a number of people from different backgrounds and cultures in an intercultural environment, in the same way that productions see multinational crews working as one team.