Magazine touts Santa Fe, Albuquerque as top spots for film workers

Even amid the coronavirus pandemic, Albuquerque and Santa Fe remain among the top cities for film workers, Movie Maker magazine announced Tuesday, as it released its 2021 rankings for the Best Places to Live and Work as a Movie Maker.

Albuquerque was rated the No. 1 big city for the third year running — other than New York and Los Angeles, which are included in the magazine’s hall of fame — followed by Atlanta; Austin, Texas; and Chicago.

Santa Fe was named No. 2 in the Small Cities and Towns category, just below New Orleans and right ahead of Savannah, Ga. This is the fifth year the City Different has appeared as one of the top five small havens for film workers.

The magazine noted Santa Fe “provides a small, intimate, away-from-it-all feel. But thanks to its considerable resources and those in Albuquerque, moviemakers relocating here won’t have to give up anything but a commute. … You’ll have no trouble finding equipment rental houses, production facilities and crew.”

“The rise of the Albuquerque-Santa Fe corridor is one of the most incredible movie and TV industry stories of the last decade, and we’re also intrigued by smaller, rising areas like Las Cruces,” Movie Maker Editor-in-Chief Tim Molloy said in a statement Tuesday. “New Mexico has become a major film and TV hub that still looks to have astonishing potential.”

The New Mexico Film Office touted the cities’ top spots in the rankings and credited the people of New Mexico for helping to boost the Land of Enchantment’s growing movie industry.

Spokeswoman Jennifer Esquivel said in an interview Tuesday, “The entire film community that comes to New Mexico falls in love with New Mexico. They love the people, they love the way the community embraces them.”

Netflix, NBC Universal and other major film production operations have had an increasing presence in New Mexico, and the state’s landscapes have doubled for a large number of locations on-screen.

The Santa Fe area alone has stood in for sites in Wyoming, Montana, Arizona, Texas, Colorado, Oklahoma, California, Mexico, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Turkey and Jerusalem.

“New Mexico has created an end-to-end ecosystem for filmmaking,” Esquivel said.

She cited an opportunity for more growth in the industry statewide: “We have a treasure trove of local landscapes that haven’t been on-screen yet.”