Emily in Lisbon has a nice ring to it, says the city’s mayor.
As Emily in Paris‘ fourth and fifth seasons have taken Lily Collins’ lead character from France to Italy, Lisbon Mayor Carlos Moedas tells The Hollywood Reporter he wants Collins’ Emily to bring her high heels to his city’s cobblestones for romance and career growth.
“They can contact me. I’m open to it,” Moedas said in a message to Netflix while attending Tribeca Festival Lisboa on Saturday. While not promising Emily fewer career setbacks or heartbreaks in Lisbon than in Paris, he did talk up his city’s charm and storytelling for global filmmakers.
“I hope at some point, one of these producers or movie stars or directors will think that it would be great to have a movie called Lisbon. We have loads of stories to tell,” Moedas added. Lisbon has competition, however. French President Emmanuel Macron, knowing the boon to tourism and the local property market from having the Netflix series in Paris, has made it known he will “fight hard” to keep Emily living it up in Paris.
That led a miffed Rome Mayor Roberto Gualtieri to tell Macron to chill over Emily’s Roman holiday. “You really cannot intimidate or interfere with Netflix production plans for the next season of Emily in Paris. It is just not done,” Gualtieri told The Hollywood Reporter Roma.
So it’s game on with Paris and Rome, as Moedas argued his city is perfect as a location for a movie or TV series as it has become a symbol of diversity and innovation. “Our city is ahead of the curve. We welcome diversity, we welcome different people. That’s what we’re all about,” he explained.
Tribeca Festival Lisboa, a collaboration between the Tribeca Festival, Portuguese media players and the city, takes place this week in the Beato Innovation District, a space for digital and cultural creation in the restored Beato neighborhood alongside the city’s portlands.
“We have all these technological companies that come to Lisbon and create jobs. But then I wanted to cross that with creativity, with culture, with performative arts, with movies, because this intersection of technology and art and culture is magical,” Moedas told THR.
He added technology forever changes, but storytelling is storytelling. “It’s all about humans and how we tell that story, and when you intersect that storytelling and technology, you create amazing things, you create jobs, you create new products,” Moedas said.
Tribeca Festival Lisboa wraps on Saturday.
