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Jordan, a Blockbuster Location for Hollywood

Jordan has attracted Hollywood for decades. (AFP)
Jordan has attracted Hollywood for decades. (AFP)
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Jordan, a Blockbuster Location for Hollywood

Jordan has attracted Hollywood for decades. (AFP)
Jordan has attracted Hollywood for decades. (AFP)

The lunar landscape of Jordan's Wadi Rum valley gets a starring role this week when the next and final episode of the Star Wars saga opens to global audiences.

The spectacular desert, with its shimmering red sands, majestic dunes and stunning rock formations was also where Peter O'Toole was filmed riding his horse in the 1962 epic "Lawrence of Arabia".

From Matt Damon in "The Martian" to Will Smith in Disney's "Aladdin", Jordanian authorities have worked to ensure the country's diverse landscape features in some of Hollywood's biggest blockbusters.

"When you travel to locations everything changes inside of you," Smith told a news conference earlier this year in Jordan's capital Amman.

"When we landed in Jordan all of a sudden you begin to embody the feelings of the characters like when we were in Wadi Rum... it was absolutely spectacular."

Jordan's Royal Film Commission was set up in 2003 to promote the country as a "huge open air studio", says its managing director Mohannad Al-Bakri.

To entice foreign filmmakers, the commission -- chaired by Prince Ali, one of King Abdullah II's half brothers -- offers financial incentives.

Production companies can enjoy a cash rebate of between 10-25 percent for a minimum of $1 million (0.9 million euros) spent in the kingdom, as well as tax exemptions on equipment imported for filming.

Petra and the holy grail

But filmmakers also come to Jordan to shoot because they are attracted to the diverse and rich landscape they find in the desert kingdom, according to Bakri.

Over the years dozens of foreign and Arab movies have been filmed in the country, including Hollywood classics such as "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade".

Steven Spielberg's 1989 movie starring Harrison Ford brought to the big screen the magic of the rose-red archaeological city of Petra, famed for its ornate temples cut into rock.

The stunning and well-preserved sandstone facade of Petra's Al-Khazneh (Treasury), which some say dates back to the first century BC, featured as the entrance to a temple housing the Holy Grail.

Parts of Disney's Aladdin remake was filmed in Wadi Rum -- "the natural choice" for us, director Guy Ritchie told reporters in Amman in May.

Naomi Scott, who played Jasmine opposite Smith, said: "it is beautiful."

"Like Will said it makes perfect sense... when you are in an environment like this" it helps enforce the character the actor is trying to portray.

Co-actor Mena Massoud, who plays Aladdin in the fantasy-romance movie, also praised the wonders of Wadi Rum.

"There is such a peace out there in the desert. There is nothing like it," he told the same news conference.

Mars in Jordan

Wadi Rum served as the backdrop for director David Lean's award-winning "Lawrence of Arabia" which critics have described as perhaps the best, or second best, film ever made.

"Rogue One: A Star Wars Story" was also filmed in the breathtaking desert, which is often known as the Valley of the Moon, before the location was again chosen for the saga's latest and final episode, "The Rise of Skywalker".

Munir Nassar, managing director of Zaman Project Management, a production services company in Jordan, said it took five months to prepare for the filming of the last Star Wars installment.

"When the actors came (to Jordan), filming was completed in 12 days and then they left," Nassar, an ex-tourism minister, said.

His company was also involved in the filming of four other movies in Jordan, including "Mission to Mars", providing everything from meals to hotel bookings and transport.

"The unique, timeless and diverse landscape of Jordan, along with its highly motivated production crews, makes it an ideal destination for filming," Prince Ali is quoted as saying on the film commission's website.

The commission's Bakri pointed to additional Jordanian locations used by filmmakers.

The picturesque town of Madaba south of Amman has been used to replicate old Greek villages while the Azraq westland natural reserve east of the capital has served to recreate South Asian regions.

Iraq war film "The Hurt Locker", which won Oscars for best picture and best director in 2010, and the thriller "Zero Dark Thirty" about CIA operatives tracking down Osama bin Laden were also filmed in Jordan.

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Hungary's Oldest Library is Fighting to Save Books from Beetle Infestation

Books are kept in hermetically sealed plastic sacks for disinfection at the Pannonhalma Archabbey's library in Pannonhalma, Hungary, Thursday, July 3, 2025, as a beetle infestation threatens its ancient collection. (AP Photo/Bela Szandelszky)
Books are kept in hermetically sealed plastic sacks for disinfection at the Pannonhalma Archabbey's library in Pannonhalma, Hungary, Thursday, July 3, 2025, as a beetle infestation threatens its ancient collection. (AP Photo/Bela Szandelszky)
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Hungary's Oldest Library is Fighting to Save Books from Beetle Infestation

Books are kept in hermetically sealed plastic sacks for disinfection at the Pannonhalma Archabbey's library in Pannonhalma, Hungary, Thursday, July 3, 2025, as a beetle infestation threatens its ancient collection. (AP Photo/Bela Szandelszky)
Books are kept in hermetically sealed plastic sacks for disinfection at the Pannonhalma Archabbey's library in Pannonhalma, Hungary, Thursday, July 3, 2025, as a beetle infestation threatens its ancient collection. (AP Photo/Bela Szandelszky)

Tens of thousands of centuries-old books are being pulled from the shelves of a medieval abbey in Hungary in an effort to save them from a beetle infestation that could wipe out centuries of history.

The 1,000-year-old Pannonhalma Archabbey is a sprawling Benedictine monastery that is one of Hungary's oldest centers of learning and a UNESCO World Heritage site.

Restoration workers are removing about 100,000 handbound books from their shelves and carefully placing them in crates, the start of a disinfection process that aims to kill the tiny beetles burrowed into them, The Associated Press reported.

The drugstore beetle, also known as the bread beetle, is often found among dried foodstuffs like grains, flour and spices. But they also are attracted to the gelatin and starch-based adhesives found in books.

They have been found in a section of the library housing around a quarter of the abbey's 400,000 volumes.

“This is an advanced insect infestation which has been detected in several parts of the library, so the entire collection is classified as infected and must be treated all at the same time,” said Zsófia Edit Hajdu, the chief restorer on the project. “We've never encountered such a degree of infection before.”

The beetle invasion was first detected during a routine library cleaning.

Employees noticed unusual layers of dust on the shelves and then saw that holes had been burrowed into some of the book spines. Upon opening the volumes, burrow holes could be seen in the paper where the beetles chewed through.

The abbey at Pannonhalma was founded in 996, four years before the establishment of the Kingdom of Hungary. Sitting upon a tall hill in northwestern Hungary, the abbey houses the country's oldest collection of books, as well as many of its earliest and most important written records.

For over 1,000 years, the abbey has been among the most prominent religious and cultural sites in Hungary and all of Central Europe, surviving centuries of wars and foreign incursions such as the Ottoman invasion and occupation of Hungary in the 16th century.

Ilona Ásványi, director of the Pannonhalma Archabbey library, said she is “humbled” by the historical and cultural treasures the collection holds whenever she enters.

“It is dizzying to think that there was a library here a thousand years ago, and that we are the keepers of the first book catalogue in Hungary,” she said.

Among the library’s most outstanding works are 19 codices, including a complete Bible from the 13th century. It also houses several hundred manuscripts predating the invention of the printing press in the mid-15th century and tens of thousands of books from the 16th century.

While the oldest and rarest prints and books are stored separately and have not been infected, Ásványi said any damage to the collection represents a blow to cultural, historical and religious heritage.

“When I see a book chewed up by a beetle or infected in any other way, I feel that no matter how many copies are published and how replaceable the book is, a piece of culture has been lost,” she said.

To kill the beetles, the crates of books are being placed into tall, hermetically sealed plastic sacks from which all oxygen is removed. After six weeks in the pure nitrogen environment, the abbey hopes all the beetles will be destroyed.

Before being reshelved, each book will be individually inspected and vacuumed. Any book damaged by the pests will be set aside for later restoration work.

The abbey, which hopes to reopen the library at the beginning of next year, believes the effects of climate change played a role in spurring the beetle infestation as average temperatures rise rapidly in Hungary.

Hajdu, the chief restorer, said higher temperatures have allowed the beetles to undergo several more development cycles annually than they could in cooler weather.

“Higher temperatures are favorable for the life of insects,” she said. “So far we've mostly dealt with mold damage in both depositories and in open collections. But now I think more and more insect infestations will appear due to global warming.”

The library’s director said life in a Benedictine abbey is governed by a set of rules in use for nearly 15 centuries, a code that obliges them to do everything possible to save its vast collection.

“It says in the Rule of Saint Benedict that all the property of the monastery should be considered as of the same value as the sacred vessel of the altar,” Ásványi said. “I feel the responsibility of what this preservation and conservation really means.”