Nam Dinh casts biggest SE Asian bronze Buddha

The casting of the biggest bronze Buddha statue in Southeast Asia began on April 22 at the Truc Lam Thien Truong Buddhist Centre in Loc Vuong ward, Nam Dinh city.

Thousands of local residents and Buddhists from all over the country attended the casting ceremony, which was held by the executive board of the Nam Dinh provincial Buddhist Church and the Nam Cuong Hanoi Joint Stock Company.

According to Deputy head of the Nam Dinh provincial Buddhist Church executive board, Most Venerable Thich Quang Ha, the statue is of great significance to the Truc Lam Thien Truong Buddhist Centre project in Nam Dinh.

The statue, measuring 14.78 metres tall, nine metres wide and weighing around 150 tonnes, cost a total of VND80 billion which was donated by the Nam Cuong Hanoi Group.

The model of the statue was made over the past two years and the casting will be carried out by artisans from the Thang Loi Casting Mechanics Company in Nam Dinh city. The statue is scheduled to be completed by the end of this year.

Vietnamese short film hopeful for Asia-Europe award

“The visitor”, directed by young amateur film-maker Nguyen Le Hoang Viet, has been selected as one of the top ten films for the final round of the 2012 Asia-Europe Film Awards (ASEF).    

The three-minute film, shot in a hospital in Hanoi, is focused on three main characters: an old patient, a granddaughter and her boy friend who is a foreigner.

The girl goes with her boy friend to visit her grandma in the hospital where the foreign guest play guitar and sing a Vietnamese song as a special gift to the old patient. She is very happy to listen to the song that says “Ba oi ba, chau yeu ba lam!” (I love you, grandma!).

The ASEF awards aim to create opportunities for young film makers aged between 18 and 35 to show their talents and improve professional skills.

The winners will have the chance to take part in a training course on film making at the in New York University Tisch School of Art Asia in Singapore and get a cash prize worth 5,000 Singaporean dollars.

Vietnam to host fourth int'l documentary film fest

The fourth International Documentary Film Festival will take place in Hanoi and the central city of Danang early this June.    

The event will be jointly held by the Vietnam National Documentary and Scientific Film Studio (VNDSFS), the European Union of National Institutes for Culture (EUNIC) and European embassies in Vietnam.

According to VNDSFS Director Pham Thi Tuyet, the festival will screen films from Vietnam, Germany, France, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Denmark, Austria and Poland.

Vietnamese documentary film-makers can send their entries via the Goethe Institute at No.56-58 Nguyen Thai Hoc Street in Hanoi before May 4.

Vietnamese short films should attend more festivals

Vietnamese young filmmakers have been not really active in using Internet and Internet to apply their movies to international film festivals, France documentary director François Serre frankly shared at his visit to Vietnam during Hue Festival.

Moreover, the representative of the Clermont-Ferrand Short Film Festival also said that the festival attracting 7,000 participating a year only receives 2 entries from Vietnam each year.

“Cuba even sent us 100 movies per year,” he added.

François Serre who is also the sound instructor from the LISA – High School for Image and Sound in Angoulême said he and his students have been stunned by Vietnamese short movies as they are interesting.

However, the problem of local filmmakers is that they have not thought about bringing their works into the outside world, as Heinz Hermans, festival director of the Berlin International Short Film Festival once told local filmmakers.

“In 2000, young director Bui Thac Chuyen sent his first movie Cuoc Xe Dem (The Night Bus) to Clermont-Ferrand and was advised by the festival’s chairman, Christian Denier, to bring it to Cannes. He then won the Cinefondation Award that year,” he shared.

“That was a small door leading him to bigger doors in his career.”

Clermont-Ferrand Short Film Festival always has short film markets which offer new talents chances to show the world what they have, he added.

The director also shared that the most common trouble for local moviemakers is the not-so-good post-production aspect, for example, the sound.

He gave the example of Dao Minh Nguyet who won the highest prize, Philips Lighting, at the French environment film festival Science Frontières for her 4-minute clip titled “Mot thong diep nho” (A small message) last November.

“She won because she knew how to express her ideas very well through the sound in the movie,” he said.

“To be honest, you need to adapt with every condition life offers you,” the director responded when some Vietnamese students complained they had many difficulties.

“The most important thing is a good screenplay as well as a good idea for your movies.”

Besides showing how good and not good the Vietnamese short film industry is, the France director also gave information about some websites where Vietnamese filmmakers could visit for free sounds for their movies like http://www.jamendo.com/en/, or sites via which moviemakers can enter their works for international festivals like http://shortfilmdepot.com/.
 
TV films and the giants

TV film productions now tend to be made by advertising and communications giants, who not only have strong capital sources but also several advertisements.

VTV9 Channel of Vietnam Television has increased the time limit to air Vietnamese films to two hours, instead of one as earlier. Films begin at 8pm Monday through Friday every week.

Those companies that VTV9 has chosen to produce films are giants in the advertising and communications fields, such as Song Vang Company, and Sao The Gioi and M&T Pictures, who now run films at 5:30pm on VTV9 and at 1pm on HTV7 of Ho Chi Minh City Television, respectively.

The three above companies are also making several movies for other TV channels such as HTV9, Vinh Long 1 and SCTV14.

It takes one to two years for TV film makers to recover their capital, requiring them to have a strong capital source. Several have had to sell their property or borrow up to several billion of dong to produce a film.

However, if their films fail to lure enough advertisements, the payment made by TV stations will be not enough to cover production costs.

The difficult economic situation has reduced the number of films produced by both small and large studios. For instance, BHD has yet to start a new project since its last TV serial aired on VTV3 in October 2010.

Phuoc Sang studio is also in the same position. Newcomers like Cho Lon, Dai Nam and Nam Saigon have taken no action after producing one to two films.

Most advertising and communications companies have signed outsourcing contracts with state-owned studios Giai Phong and Vietnam Feature Film, and with private ones like Thang Mo, Midi and Sena.

Several film makers and directors said that coordination between TV stations and the giants is normal.

Writer Bich Thuy, manager of Sena, said that film studios like hers usually get bank loans for up to a few billion dong and spend several months producing a film serial. For instance, a 30 episode serial costs VND4 billion (US$192,300) and takes six months to produce.

After completion, it is not clear that the film will be aired and lure enough advertisements. As a result, only the advertising giants dare to produce TV films, while the studios usually agree to outsource films for them.

Tran Luc, director of Dong A film studio, says that currently the TV stations live on advertising revenue. Coordination with the advertising companies helps them have more advertisements. However, he expressed concern about the quality of films.

The advertising and communications giants began to run TV films in 2005. Ever since, viewers have complained about inserted advertisements and the blatant advertising in the film’s content.

Another concern is that if the TV stations give too much priority to these giants, who usually do not invest in deeper subjects like history, they might provide the audience with a poor selection of film categories.

Ms. Thuy said that the coordination between the big advertising companies and TV stations might be a good solution for both of them. However, the companies are doing business, and thus they will not insist on art or education matters but on capital recovery. Thus, the TV stations should draw up contracts with close terms regarding film quality.

Director Minh Cao suggested that the advertising enterprises work with several directors and film studios to diversify their film content.

Chinese circus troupe to tour Vietnam

A circus troupe from China’s Yunnan province will make a performance tour of Vietnamese localities at the invitation of the Vietnam Circus Federation.   

Twenty-five artists will perform in HCM City from May 26 to June 1 before touring Hanoi and Vung Tau, Dong Nai and Binh Duong provinces.

At each show, 10 gifts will be handed over to local disadvantaged children.

This is the third time the troupe has performed in Vietnam after the 2003 and 2007 trips.

Photographic exhibition on Vietnam-Laos special friendship

The Lao National Assembly Chairwoman, Pany Yathotu, and her Vietnamese counterpart, Nguyen Sinh Hung, cut a ribbon to open a photographic exhibition on Vietnam-Laos special friendship in Son La province on April 23.
     
Of more than 150 photographs on display, many have been published for the first time, such as photos of President Ho Chi Minh talking to President Xuphanuvong in the Viet Bac revolutionary base in 1948 and President Cayson Phomvihan in Hanoi in 1962.

Other photos focus on the signing of treaties and agreements by the two countries’ leaders.

VNA photographers portray ethnic people, culture

Landscapes and ethnic groups of the northern mountainous region are featured in a photograph exhibition which opened this morning in Ha Noi.

Entitled Sac Mau Vung Cao (The Colour of Mountainous Region), the exhibition is being organised by the Viet Nam News Agency to celebrate Reunification Day on April 30.

The 70 large photographs exhibited are the result of several journeys by 16 VNA photojournalists to mountainous remote areas. They depict the daily life, festivals, customs and traditional costumes of the ethnic groups, including Mong, Dao, Thai, Nung, La Hu, Lo Lo.

Photographer Thanh Ha, who has 10 photos on display, said the region, people and culture gave him endless inspiration.

His photo La Pan Tan Vao Mua (La Pan Tan in Harvesting Season) shows the picturesque terraced paddy fields – a symbolic image of the region.

Le Hoi Nhay Lua Cua Nguoi Pa Then (The Fire Jumping Festival of Pa Then People) by Minh Dao portrays the spiritual atmosphere as barefoot men jump on red-hot charcoal without pain.

The exhibition will remain open at 45 Trang Tien Street, Ha Noi, until next Tuesday.

Exhibition highlights Dai Viet and Cham cultures

The Cham Exhibition Centre is hosting an exhibit entitled Cultural Contact in the Arts of the Dai Viet and Cham. The exhibition, which opened yesterday, has 100 photos and artefacts on display from the Ly Dynasty in the 11th and 13 centuries and from the Cham culture of the 7th and 8th centuries. The exhibition runs through October 23.

Photo exhibition in HCM City highlights landscapes

Nature and I is the main theme of photographer Nguyen Thu Tinh's solo exhibition at the Institute for Cultural Exchange with France in HCM City.

The 48 colour photos feature landscapes and plants in various cities and sites across Viet Nam, including Nha Trang, Phan Thiet and Madagui. All were taken from 2005 to 2012.

The 32-year-old artist said: "I am a nature lover and I use my photos to show the changes in nature as well as to express my mood."

Tinh, whose nickname is Rong Vang, is a freelance photographer and vice chairman of the Gia Dinh Photographer Club.

He is also a member of Viet Nam Association of Photographic Artists and the Federation of International Photographic Art.

The exhibition at 31 Thai Van Lung Street in District 1 will close on Sunday.