The National Assembly on June 15 approved the revised Law on Cinematography with 90.16 percent votes. The law, comprising eight chapters and 48 articles, will take effect on January 1, 2023. One of the noticeable contents of the law is the dissemination of films on cyberspace.

Nguyen Dac Vinh, the National Assembly’s Committee for Culture and Education Chairman, said there are two opinions about the dissemination of films online.

First, the majority of National Assembly deputies, agencies and organizations propose both pre- and post-examination measures.

Pre-examination measures include specific and strict regulations on subjects allowed to distribute films in cyberspace; and regulations on film classification criteria, and control of the self-classification of films. The subjects disseminating film cyberspace are required to inform appropriate state management agencies about lists of films and film classification level before popularization.

Post-examination measures include regulations on the responsibility of relevant state agencies, individuals and organizations; and the application of technology, AI and technical solutions to discover, prevent and remove films which violate the law and strictly handle violators. 

According to the National Assembly’s Standing Committee, this has the advantage of ensuring a flexible control over the dissemination of films on cyberspace, upholding the initiative and responsibility of relevant organizations and individuals, and strengthening state management agencies’ use of technologies to prevent violations. The method suits Vietnam’s human resources, financial and technical conditions in Vietnam and the international practice.

However, if only applying the method, it will be impossible to discover violations from the beginning. Therefore, it is necessary to regularly check and use technology to carry out post-examination to strictly handle violations.

Second, some agencies and National Assembly deputies believe that it is necessary to apply the pre-examination method, i.e. all films have to be licensed before disseminated in cyberspace.

The advantage of the method is that the content of films is controlled and violations are prevented before films are disseminated. However, it has the disadvantage that the current workforce and technical conditions don’t allow review of all films before dissemination as the number of films in cyberspace is very high.

After the discussion on May 25, verification and compilation agencies acquired opinions and revised the draft law. The National Assembly’s Standing Committee and the Government believe that the first opinion (applying both pre- and post-examination) is the best solution.

Regarding the provision of film production services to foreign organizations and individuals in accordance with Article 13 of the law, Vinh said there are also two opinions.

First, foreign organizations and individuals are required to provide summary movie scripts of the films, and provide detailed scripts of the film scenes to be implemented in Vietnam. The scripts must be in Vietnamese.

The provision of summary and detailed scripts will allow state management agencies to discover problems early. At the same time, this will create favorable conditions and encourage foreign organizations and individuals to use services in Vietnam.

For films that have most of their scenes shot in Vietnam, the detailed scripts of the scenes in Vietnam are nearly the detailed scripts of the films, which would allow stricter control.

Second, some people think that Vietnam needs to require to provide full scripts, because summary scripts would be not enough to show the content of films.

According to the National Assembly Standing Committee, the provision of full scripts allows state management agencies to conduct overall assessment of film script content, appraisal and management of film content, ensuring requirements on politics, national defense and security. This option was chosen by the Government.

In fact, both measures may contain risks in controlling film content, because scripts may change after being appraised and licensed by competent authorities. 

The draft law stipulates that regardless of the method of implementation, foreign organizations and individuals using filming services and implementing scenes in Vietnam must make written commitments not to violate regulations.

Under cultural industry development, the application of reasonable policies and creation of favorable conditions to attract foreign filmmakers to Vietnam are very important issues which help boost the development of the cinema industry.

Tran Thuong