ITALY

The stunning historical hillside city of Matera, one of the oldest inhabited places in the world where people have lived in caves for thousands of years, is the backdrop to the first big action sequence of the film – a super-charged car chase involving Bond, Madeleine Swann and his trusty Aston Martin DB5. Two classic DB5S and eight stunt replicas were used, along with other cars, in the action sequence which took six weeks to film.

Matera’s inhabitants had to close their doors and windows for hours on end as filming took place so they wouldn’t be seen, with special effects supervisor Chris Corbould recalling, ‘Everyone was watching from inside their houses and every time we did a shot there was a round of applause. It’s a city with such a rich history and it looks amazing. Then throw the car into the equation – which is doing more than it’s done since Goldfinger in 1964. For it to come back in all its glory and have a spectacular sequence again, the audience will love it.’ Filming for the Italian sequence also took place at a train station in Sapri.