Wednesday, October 28, 2026
News and Views from the Global South
/ARTS WEEKLY/CINEMA-VIETNAM: Local Film Gets Overseas Break
Tran Dinh Thanh Lam
- News that ‘Doi Cat’ (Sand Life) will soon be aired on Chinese television has given Vietnamese film director Thanh Van a thrill and the local film industry a much-needed boost.
”I was ecstatic hearing that the CCTV6 had purchased the film,” beamed Thanh Van, who considers the feat a significant step in Vietnam’s cinema industry’s efforts to break into the world movie market.
‘Doi Cat’ depicts a post-war love triangle in which the characters struggle to understand the complexity of their emotions in the wake of the war. The poignant film has been recognised overseas — at the 45th Asia-Pacific film festival in 2000, the International Film Festival in Amiens, France also in 2000. It has also been cited by the Vietnam Cinematography Association in 2001.
”Overseas spectators have not known much about Vietnamese cinema because film exporting is not yet an industry,” Van said.
He is right. Foreign audiences have so far been fed with films on Vietnam made by overseas Vietnamese producers and directors. French produced films such as ‘The Lover’, ‘Indochine’, ‘Dien Bien Phu’ and Viet Kieus’ films ‘Cyclo’, ‘Scent of Green Papaya’ are few of the ”Vietnamese films” screened in the world’s theaters. ”The misrepresentation is probably unintentional, but still it gives a false impression about the current capacity of local Vietnamese filmmakers,” remarked New York-based filmmaker and producer Richard Connors who has been involved with several Vietnamese film projects in the last few years.
Actually, several movies made in Vietnam have been screened in most of the world’s top festivals and Vietnam has been given special attention as an emerging voice in world cinema.
To date, however, the only Vietnamese film purchased by international distributors remains ‘The Season of Guavas’ by Vietnam’s leading filmmaker Dang Nhat Minh. The film featuring childhood memory has been purchased by France-based President Films and screened at Gaumont’s theater network.
Minh’s portfolio includes ‘When will be October?’ and ‘Nostalgia for the Countryside’, movies that have gained international acclaim for their description of the complexity and pain of Vietnam’s recent social changes after the war. ‘Doi Cat’ however, is traveling to China on an exceptional ticket. Together with several other Vietnamese productions, ‘Doi Cat’ has been presented at the latest Hong Kong Film Market. Not one film however, has attracted the interest of international distributors.
But thanks to the active marketing efforts of a Vietnamese journalist, directors of the Chinese foreign film television channel have agreed to purchase a copy of ‘Doi Cat’ for screening on CCTV6 so that Chinese audiences who have sampled films from Europe, North America and other parts of Asia could experience a film from neighbour Vietnam.
So far the only ”Vietnamese film” purchased by CCTV6 is ‘Ba Mua’ (Three Seasons), a popular movie directed by overseas Vietnamese Tony Bui. ‘Ba Mua’ was filmed in Vietnam, with Vietnamese actors and actresses, but produced and released abroad.
”CCTV6 has purchased the movie from an overseas distributor, not a Vietnamese one,” Van stressed.
Belonging to the third generation of Vietnamese directors, Thanh Van, now in his 40s, identifies overseas film distribution and theater management as the most pressing concerns of the movie industry in Vietnam.
”Marketing Vietnamese features overseas is not an organised practice,” he said. Many Vietnamese films in fact have been applauded at international festivals, some have won international awards but not many have been purchased by foreign film distributors.
For Nguyen Phuc Thanh, the director of the Cinematography Department that takes charge of distribution, Vietnamese films must brave the rough international waters to get through to overseas markets.
”Though efforts have been made in the distributing service, it goes without saying that any foreign market is severely competitive. Our overseas partners require many factors when representing Vietnamese films to their native audience,” Thanh said.
Attempts at distributing Vietnamese films have so far been rebuffed by foreign film distributors because of poor audio quality of local productions, which seriously dampens their market appeal.
”It is not because of a shortage of creativity or artistry. All that is missing is money,” said Luu Trong Ninh, one of Vietnam’s leading film directors. ”In general, feeble film distribution policies have long hindered Vietnamese good films from traveling abroad.”
Until now, feature films in Vietnam are the preserve of state-owned producers. According to insiders these companies manage to make feature films for as little as 1-1.5 billion Vietnamese dong (71,400 U.S. dollars).
But they’re not making cut-price films by choice. About 80 per cent of their funds come from the state’s annual subsidy to the film industry of about 10 billion VN dong (714,000 U.S. dollars), which is supposed to cover production, publication and investment in film-making facilities.
The result is low-budget pulp. Filmgoers, faced with poor production quality and Hong Kong kung fu videos and low-end Hollywood action adventure films have largely decided to stay home to watch rented videos.
Consequently, many theatre owners have had to convert their idle facilities into discos and karaoke bars.
”We feel ashamed to say that Vietnam’s film-making facilities are at their lowest level, even speaking regionally, despite the fact that our films are well recognised in terms of artistry. Film producers have to utilise equipment that’s more than tens of years old,” says Nguyen Van Nam, deputy director of the Vietnam Feature Film Company (VFFC).
”All domestic film producers are running at a loss even though the majority is state-funded,” said industry insider Dang Tat Binh.
Films were routinely sold to publication companies at a price of 100-150 million dong (7,140-10,715 U.S. dollars), about one tenth of the amount they cost to make, Binh said.
Facing such stagnation, the government decided in 1990 to open up the film industry to the private sector. However, as it still considers cinema a means of propaganda and mass education, film content remains under strict censorship.
Several individual investors have tied up with state-owned companies to produce movies. But a decade later, many have abandoned the game. ”Almost all films made by the private sector are loss-making. We cannot find outlets for our products,” said Hai Nhat, one of the most enthusiastic private film-makers.
Managers of state-owned movie theater actually prefer to release the more popular Hong Kong movies, and ask for exorbitant fees for local films.
”Worse, our works are rapidly pirated and duplicated on thousands of video-cassettes right after their premiers,” Hai Nhat said.
Unprofitability and weak copyright management have thus deterred private film makers from making high-quality films that could be distributed overseas.
”With a project funded by a private investor pending for more than one year for approval, the ball is now in the government’s court,” Hai Nhat said.
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/ARTS WEEKLY/CINEMA-VIETNAM: Local Film Gets Overseas Break
Tran Dinh Thanh Lam
- News that ‘Doi Cat’ (Sand Life) will soon be aired on Chinese television has given Vietnamese film director Thanh Van a thrill and the local film industry a much-needed boost.
(more…)
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