The Viet Nam Cinematography Association is playing an important role in developing a strategy for the development of Vietnamese cinema through the next decade. Viet Nam News spoke to the newly elected chairman of the association, Dang Xuan Hai, about the plan and challenges facing the association in the next few years.
What are some of the challenges facing the association?
We are sharing the same challenges that the nation's cinema sector is facing. These include how to improve the quality and quantity of Vietnamese films and promote international exchange in the field.
The association has been actively co-ordinating with the sector to try to solve these problems.
I realise that we should first examine the current situation in the sector, including facilities, human resources, and capital sources, in order to define more clearly in what areas the sector needs to improve.
For example, talking about human resources, it takes at least five years to train a cinematic professional, e.g., a director or screenwriter, and it takes nearly as much time for that person to mature in his or her career. There are only two academic colleges offering cinema training in Ha Noi and HCM City and no institutions offering short courses for cinema workers. I think the association should fill the gap.
We should establish a cinema training centre at the association, where members can receive training from both domestic and foreign lecturers.
Later this year, the association will hold a seven-day course for directors in Ha Noi and HCM City. Australian director Philip Noyce will be the primary lecturer and more than 40 directors from throughout the country will attend the course.
The association will try to find sponsorship for such courses from private companies. For the Noyce seminars, BHD Co has agreed to sponsor for the Ha Noi class while we are still considering some potential sponsors for the HCM course.
We will further co-ordinate with local television to train screenwriters and directors. In the last few years, we have held classes in Tuyen Quang, Dien Bien, Ca Mau, Kien Giang and Da Nang and the results have been encouraging.
What about the film distribution system? What will the association do to help promote the screening of domestic films?
That's another weak point in which the sector should improve. There are only around 90 cinemas out of 150 operating in 51 cities and provinces showing domestic films. (There are no cinemas in the other 13 provinces). But even at those cinemas, the number of domestic films doesn't reach 20 per cent of the films screened as regulated by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism.
I believe that the Government could help establish special cinema branches which give priority to screening domestic films.
The association will also proceed with the establishment of a TV channel which introduces new cinematic works by domestic directors along with high-quality works by foreign directors. The channel, which is planned to be on the air next year, will be an important way for Vietnamese cinema to reach audiences as well as for the Vietnamese audience to get access to more advanced foreign cinema.
Sending cinema professionals to study overseas is an important element in the draft plan for the sector. What are the plans?
At this moment, I can't tell the exact number of cinema workers to be sent overseas to study each year. A big problem for most of them now is foreign language capability. Qualified candidates will be sent to the US, South Korea and China to study at the undergraduate and graduate levels.
What about training cinema audiences? Tell us about the We Are Film-makers project in Ha Noi, which has been funded by the Ford Foundation.
The project has been very successful at various schools and colleges in Ha Noi. It aims not only to teach students to make films but also to better understand cinematic works. We have received warm co-operation from the Ministry of Planning and Investment and the Ministry of Education and Training. We have tried to find sponsorships to continue the project in HCM City, Nha Trang, the Central Highlands and central region.
In addition, the association will soon launch a movement to encourage more Vietnamese people to watch Vietnamese films. As you may know, a similar movement entitled Vietnamese People Use Vietnamese Goods has recently been successful. — VNS