Malta, Gozo and Comino at the Movies
Page brought to you by divinginfo.mt in collaboration with the DIVEMED Underwater Film Unit
The Maltese Islands have featured many times in movies, but did you know that the islands’ over and underwater topography also served as a stage for several movies throughout the years?
Malta has been used as a film base for several years, mainly due to our facilities, skilled crew, and the pristine Mediterranean clear waters. While many movies have made use of the shallow and deep water tanks available at the Malta Film Studios, others have used our streets or historical buildings as backdrops for their movies. Our islands have ‘doubled’ as several locations in popular pictures such as ‘Troy‘, ‘Gladiator‘, and ‘World War Z‘. More recently, we have seen an increase in exposure for the Maltese islands, where our locations are being used ‘Malta-for-Malta, such as in ‘Jurassic Park: Dominion‘.
Similarly, several underwater sets have been built in Malta ranging from shipwrecks to spaceships; set to take the viewer to different underwater setting. Some others have used ready available sites, such as the P31 shipwreck, to be featured in their movie. A list of movies below have used our underwater topography, landscapes, and/or shipwrecks to bring their underwater image to life. Sometimes underwater footage is combined with footage shot at the Malta FIlm Studios water tanks which are amongst the biggest production facilities in the world purposely built for shooting of scenes over or underwater in the world with the ability to generate special effects in a safe manner. It is a very small list as a subset of the many projects filmed in Malta over the years, some of which are listed on the Malta Film Commission’s website.
Productions featuring Maltese Underwater Locations
- Starfish Pickle(2023) – to be released, featuring a popular wreck + a Maltese dive centre;
- War Sailor (2023) – Filmed out at sea;
- The Dive (2023) – Features underwater action sequences in local underwater caves;
- The Last Breath (2024) – Shot partially in Maltese waters;
- Shark Bait (2022) – shot completely in Maltese waters;
- Odin Vdokh (2020) – free diving movie, shot in Maltese Waters;
- Das boot Season 1 to 3 – shot in Malta film studios and out at sea;
- Captain Philips (2013) – water scenes have been shot in Malta;
- American Renegades (2017) – underwater village built in the Malta Film Studios;
- Mega Mindy Versus ROX (2015) – featuring the P31 in Comino (opening shot); and
- The Silent Enemy (1958) – A WW2 themed movie which included footage of the Lockheed P2V Neptune airplane wreck off Bahar ic-Caghaq which had been scuttled for the movie.
- Open Water 2: Adrift(2009) – Filmed around Gozo (Thanks to sceneongozo.com for their tip!)
Local Productions
- Simshar (2014) – surface shots around the islands of Malta
- Luzzu (2021) – surface shots around the islands of Malta
- The Boat (2018) – Inland Sea, Dwejra, Gozo
If you are aware of more movies / TV shows / other media that we do not list below here, kindly contact us and we’ll include it!
