The 2024 Italian Film Festival (IFF 2024), which began several days ago, was co-organized by the Consulate General of Italy in HCM City and the Asian Film Festival in Rome, attracting many filmmakers and movie lovers.

The organizing board aims to popularize Italian culture to Vietnamese audiences. In addition to introducing notable films, the festival acts as a bridge for actors, filmmakers and experts of the two countries to meet and share their love for movies.

People’s Artist, Director Dao Ba Son, one of the guests, said the Italian cinema remains unfamiliar to most Vietnamese, though the country has had famous talents belonging to the neorealist school.

One of the most important goals of the festival is to help practitioners in Vietnam access and learn about the world's pioneering cinema.

Son, who has been a judge at film festivals for many years, noted that all art works, including ones with low costs of several billion dong and others with high costs of hundreds of billion of dong have made contributions to the country’s cinema. 

“I am happy that we have had good works in the last 10 years.  In addition to commercial films, there are also projects that feature the human condition and touch audiences,” Son said.

The famous director said the future of Vietnam’s cinema depends on young directors, producers and investors. With an artistic vision, thinking and quality, they will help develop the market. 

Son emphasized the need to have good film scripts, saying this is the decisive factor that determines the success of films.

“Vietnam is lacking good screenplays, and so is the world. That is why we have to buy script copyrights from neighboring countries such as South Korea and China,” he said.

Creativity must be seen when making films, from dialogue, context and language, so that the products bear the Vietnamese soul.

“You need to do it in a way so that when watching films, the audiences will say ‘these are Vietnamese films’,” he said.

Tuan Chieu