Tran Anh Hung: 'Cinema survives thanks to commercial films'

Outstanding director of the 2023 Cannes Film Festival Tran Anh Hung said that the film industry needs to be diverse, and commercial films contribute to creating momentum for development.

Tran Anh Hung: 'Cinema today is worse than before'. Video: Cong Khang

On the occasion of the film The Pot-au-Feu ( A Thousand Tastes of Humanity ) being released domestically on March 22, director Tran Anh Hung was interviewed about his professional perspective 30 years after winning the Camera d'Or award at the 1993 Cannes Film Festival. Tran Anh Hung said he did not feel pressured when the work competed at the box office with commercial films such as Dune 2 , Kung Fu Panda 4 , Exhuma: Quất Mộ Trung Ma and Godzilla x Kong .

According to Tran Anh Hung, in order for the film industry to develop, it needs both commercial and artistic films. "If commercial projects generate high profits, artistic films will benefit at some point," he said. However, Tran Anh Hung also believes that today's cinema will be worse when filmmakers only focus on telling stories that follow trends or are dramatic, forgetting the artistic qualities that make up this art form.

Tran Anh Hung, 62 years old, settled in France after 1975, majoring in philosophy at a university. After accidentally watching Robert Bresson's film A Man Escaped (1956), he decided to pursue an artistic career, studying at the prestigious École Louis-Lumière film school.

When making his first works, the director pursued themes that were strongly Vietnamese, such as the short film Nguoi Thieu Phu Nam Xuong , adapted from Truyen Ky Man Luc. In 1993, his first feature film The Scent of Green Papaya - set in Saigon in the 1950s - received the Caméra d'Or award at the Cannes Film Festival and was nominated for an Oscar in the category of Best International Feature Film.

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