Not quite correct to say our cinema is a child: famous director
17:00 26/03/2009

Film director Nguyen Thanh Van talked about his views on Vietnam’s cinema scene.      

  Film director Nguyen Thanh Van talked about his views on Vietnam’s cinema scene.

People said Vietnam’s 50-year-old cinema industry was still a child, despite it having a population of more than 80 million, when only six celluloid films were entered for last year’s Vietnam Cinema Association’s Golden Kite Prize. What do you think?

This was absolutely abnormal and resulted from the film-making process. A few years ago, the Cinema Department assigned each State-owned film company to produce four or five films annually.

But during the past two years, the companies submitted screenplays to the department and if they were approved, they got money to make films.

There may be no or only one or two screenplays worth making into films. That’s why there was a sharp drop in the annual output of films.

It’s not quite correct to say our cinema is a child. The important thing is how to grow and mature production.

If the screening procedure is so strict, there should be better films. Why were the judging panel and audiences dissatisfied with our films in the past two years?

This is because filmmakers still follow the old process of making films.

But there are more filmmakers, directors and playwrights?

Yes. There are many more filmmakers, playwrights and directors. But that’s only an increase in numbers. South Korean cinema, for example, sent more than 100 students to the US to study. About 20 settled there but the rest returned and developed the country’s cinema.

We think about Vietnamese cinema but makers have been going their own way. They sometimes have opportunities to go overseas for training, or to visit film studios but that’s not enough. Our policy of making films is not effective enough, including the nearly finished films.

Your father, People’s Artist Hai Ninh said: "Present young filmmakers should be brave." Your wife, director Pham Nhue Giang noted: "Films by private companies are low quality while films by State-owned companies are ideologically oriented." Do you agree with them and is that the reason we lack interesting films for the Golden Kite Prize?

Yes, I do. This has been the so-called "orientation" established by cinema managers. Film themes have always been oriented to focus on revolutionary struggle, political leaders, children and remote mountainous areas. This orientation has limited creativeness, while benefiting a few people.

The orientation has existed so long it has become inertia. Any young filmmakers wishing to escape from this would be considered alien and having an ideological error.

When making a film, the most important thing is whether the director really moved with the screenplay or the theme. Each director would then express their style by making the film, despite the time and the place the story occurs. Making a film is the director displaying himself to the public through the film.

Some people say the State should reduce investment in cinema and focus more on the development of private film companies. The Golden Kite Prize should attract more private film companies and make national cinema life more socialised and active. What do you think?

Any filmmaker can seek support for his/her project from private companies but so far the State is still the main supporter. State-invested films have been among the best when taking Vietnam’s image to the world.

Imagine if we didn’t have such State-funded films as Doi Cat (Sandy Life), Mua Oi (Guava Season) and Ben Khong Chong (Wharf of Widows) and audiences had only Nu Hon Than Chet (The Host Kiss) or Dep Tung Centimet (Beautiful to the Last Centimetre), which are made by private companies, to watch.

How Vietnamese society is reflected through cinema is seen by people throughout the world.

Many directors, including me, want investment from sources other than the State. Wherever the money comes from, the most important thing is to produce a good film with the director’s independence.

VietNamNet/VNS

Source : vietnamnet.vn