HCM City Television's HTV9 channel has begun broadcasting a series featuring the lives of urban students.

Truong Noi Tru (Boarding School), produced by the HCM City Television Film Studio (TFS), focuses on the changing relationship between a group of friends and their parents and teachers.

TFS hopes that it will be entertaining enough to lure away young audiences, particularly high school students, from the slick Korean productions that dominate Vietnamese channels.

It used high-tech equipment for the filming.

The 30-episode Truong Noi Tru features young actors, including Nha Phuong, Truc Pham, My Phuong, Hoang Phi and Thanh Tan, as the friends, who are intelligent and humorous.

"I don't have a serious educational message. I just hope young viewers will be entertained as well as learn simple but useful lessons," Le Khac Hoai Nam, director of the film, said.

He said he would cast amateur actors, most of them students based in HCM City, because it was the best way to ensure that his film's characters would appeal to teenagers.

According to Nam, filmmakers are facing difficulties in making works for children or teenagers.

"The main hurdle is that producers often receive poor screenplays that are not suitable for such viewers," he said. "So they don't want to make film or TV series at a cost of billions of dong with these screenplays."

But Nam added that making movies for young audiences, particularly children, was difficult.

"Producers need good screenplays and skilled young actors who can infuse life into children's roles," he said.

Another common problem is that directors and screenwriters do not fully comprehend youngsters' lifestyle.

Director Xuan Phuoc, owner of the private Xuan Phuoc Film Studio, said, "Young people have their own way of perceiving life, and this is not always easy to understand."

"Many viewers wrote in to complain that the characters in Vietnamese films are just silly boys and girls and that they never think and act like them".

The Viet Nam Television (VTV) last month began airing Cua So Thuy Tinh (Glass Windows), a 260-part sitcom series featuring school boys and girls who face problems.

Broadcast every night at 10pm, the film is expected to attract both urban and rural teenagers during the summer holiday.

The HCM City-based private film company Ngoi Sao Vang invested a lot on Truoc Nguong Cua Cuoc Doi (Facing the Challenges of Young Adult Life) which was screened on HTV9 last week. The film portrays the love, work, dreams and hopes of young people after highschool.

The producer is confident Truoc Nguong Cua Cuoc Doi will be a hit.

"I gave young audiences what they wanted in a TV series," the film's director Nhat Tuan said in a recent interview to the Sai Gon Giai Phong (Liberated Sai Gon) newspaper.

VNS