Soon there will be a policy on releasing state-ordered films.
Recently, the film "Peach, Pho and Piano" ordered by the State became a "phenomenon" at the box office. The issue of whether there is a mechanism to release films ordered by the State has received the attention of the press at the Press Conference.
Scene of the Press Conference on the morning of April 11 at the headquarters of the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism
Sharing about this issue, Mr. Vi Kien Thanh, Director of the Department of Cinema, said: The revenue of the film "Dao, Pho and Piano" reached 21 billion VND, equal to the amount of money the State budget spent on making the film. However, the Organizing Committee only collected money for buying tickets to see this film outside the theater system at 50% of the normal ticket price. Thus, if tickets were sold at the same price as commercial films, the revenue of the film "Dao, Pho and Piano" would be twice as high and make a profit of about 21 billion VND. The Department of Cinema has proposed that Vietnam Television broadcast "Dao, Pho and Piano" on the occasion of April 30 and the 70th anniversary of Dien Bien Phu Victory, but it was not allowed because the station had many other programs and films on this occasion and would postpone the broadcast to the anniversary of the Liberation of the Capital on October 10.
Mr. Thanh also said that there are 3 reasons why the film "Dao, Pho and Piano" achieved high revenue. Firstly, this is a good film in terms of ideological content, staging, directing; the cast of actors performed well. Secondly, although the film did not have a budget for propaganda, it received support from the press, media and online community. Thirdly, the film was released during the Tet holiday, the market was saturated with films with other content. The success of the film also shows that young Vietnamese people are still very interested in the history of the country and the nation. However, not all films will have all 3 of the above factors. Not to mention, films ordered by the State are often films about history, revolutionary war, children. Such films are not easy to attract audiences because the audience mainly watches entertainment films.
Discussing the issue of releasing State-ordered films in the near future, Mr. Vi Kien Thanh said that predictions about the audience going to theaters are a challenge for filmmakers and an extremely difficult problem that no one has solved. Even the release of "Dao, Pho and Piano" is part of the trial release of some State-ordered films outside the theater system of the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism to see the box office revenue of these films. In addition to the film "Dao, Pho and Piano", there is also the film "Hong Ha Nu Si" and 6 other animated films, but only "Dao, Pho and Piano" has high revenue.
The movies Dao, Pho and Piano show that if the 3 factors are guaranteed, the State-ordered movies will attract audiences.
"The films ordered by the State to be produced are used for domestic and foreign film weeks, shown on television, served to the people for free, and serve political tasks, not finished and then stored as some opinions in the press have suggested. The film weeks and film batches all use films invested in and produced by the State, not films from private entities because the State does not have the funds to buy copyrights," the Director of the Department of Cinema affirmed.
Regarding the plan of the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism on distributing films ordered by the State, Mr. Thanh said that for a long time, these films only had production costs, not funds for promotion. Previously, Fafilm Vietnam distributed the above films, but now this unit no longer exists, so there is no unit to distribute films ordered by the State. The Department of Cinema does not have the function of distributing films. The Department has proposed to assign the National Cinema Center to be responsible for distributing films ordered by the State and at the same time proposed to develop a Decree on film distribution and dissemination, in which to remove obstacles related to the above film distribution. The Decree is expected to be issued by the end of 2024.
Mr. Vi Kien Thanh - Director of the Department of Cinema shared at the Press Conference
Strengthen post-control
Also at the press conference, Mr. Vi Kien Thanh and representatives of the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism discussed many other "hot" issues around the field of Cinema. Regarding the issue of movies being shown widely online, including many nonsense movies, Mr. Thanh said that according to current regulations, only movies shown in theaters are allowed to be produced under the pre-control regime (licensing for distribution). Movies shown on the Internet are produced under the post-control regime, and distributors are responsible for classifying movies and displaying warnings to viewers. However, currently, the Department of Cinema only has 10 people performing the task of controlling movies online and all of them are part-time. Each day is divided into 2 shifts, each shift has 5 people, so it is impossible to watch everything.
Regarding the problems surrounding the equitization of Vietnam Feature Film Studio, including the divestment proposal of the investor - Vivaso, Mr. Thanh said that this is a very complicated and difficult issue, and will have to be implemented in accordance with the previous Conclusion of the Government Inspectorate.
Regarding the issue of 300 films of the Studio not being preserved or being damaged, the representative of the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism said that the original copies of these films have been preserved at the Vietnam Film Institute according to the correct standards. The copies kept at the Studio for the Studio to exploit have been damaged, cannot be restored and should not be restored because it is very expensive, while we already have the original copies at the Vietnam Film Institute. Previously, following the petition of the artists, Deputy Minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism Ta Quang Dong and the representative of the Studio's artists personally went to the Vietnam Film Institute to inspect and review the film archive and the Ministry also sent a written response to the artists on this issue.
Deputy Minister Ta Quang Dong inspected the film copies produced by Vietnam Feature Film Studio kept at the Vietnam Film Institute in April 2023.
Responding to information about the International Film Festival in Ho Chi Minh City but no Vietnamese films participated, a representative of the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism said that this information was not accurate. Specifically, Vietnam had 1 feature film registered but the film was not licensed by the Department of Cinema because it violated the Cinema Law, so it was not allowed to participate. At the same time, there were 3 short films participating. According to the regulations of the International Film Festival, each Film Festival can only register a certain number of films and the Ho Chi Minh City International Film Festival is a local one, organized with socialized funding. According to the current Cinema Law, the organization of this Film Festival does not violate regulations as some opinions have recently stated. The Director of the Cinema Department also affirmed that the Law encourages the implementation of international and domestic Film Festivals with socialized funding, in order to create momentum to promote the development of cinema and the film industry, contributing to the successful implementation of the strategy for developing cultural industries in Vietnam./.
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