A workshop at the Ho Chi Minh City International Film Festival 2024 (HIFF 2024) has highlighted the challenge Vietnamese movie producers face: despite high production costs, profits remain low.

It costs around VND5-55 billion (US$200,000-2.2 million) to make a film in Vietnam.

However, film producers find it hard to make a good product with a budget of less than VND20 billion ($800,300), according to local producers.

At the workshop titled 'Ho Chi Minh City Cinema: Vision and Development Strategy' held on Sunday, Ngo Thi Bich Hanh, co-founder and vice-chairwoman of multimedia company BHD, said Vietnam ranked second in terms of cinema box-office sales in Southeast Asia last year.

It followed Indonesia, while the population of Indonesia is 277 million people, much higher than that of Vietnam, at 100 million. 

Vietnam’s box-office revenue was 2.5 times that of Thailand, which boasts a developed cinema industry in the region.

Locally-made movies also accounted for a large proportion of blockbusters in Vietnam.

Last year, six Vietnam-made movies were in the top 10 box-office hits in the country.

However, Vietnam’s cinema industry is not strong. At present, nearly 50 Vietnamese enterprises are engaged in movie production and over half of them have produced only one movie each.

In 2023, Vietnam produced only 23 movies. The figure was expected to rise to 30 this year but it remains small.

According to Hanh, Vietnam’s cinema industry is among the fastest growing in the world with a 21 percent growth rate annually over the past many years.

With a major population and a developing economy, Vietnam holds high potential to become one of the 10 countries with the highest box-office revenue in the foreseeable future.

However, film production and cinema operation costs are high in Vietnam, resulting in low profits, especially after the COVID-19 pandemic was kept at bay.

Hanh took ‘Dat Rung Phuong Nam,' or 'Song of the South' in English, as an example, saying the movie required an investment of $2.2 million.

She blamed the high film production costs on the shortage of fixed film studios. Contexts for scenes are often dismantled after scenes are completed.

According to Nguyen Hoang Hai, distribution director at South Korea-based cinema system CJ CGV Vietnam, Vietnam lacks cinema infrastructure so it produces fewer than 40 movies a year.

Capital for reinvestment in the cinema industry is important, Hai noted.

At the HIFF 2024, French Consul General in Ho Chi Minh City Emmanuelle Pavillon-Grosser said her house was a location for scenes of Vietnam’s Cong Tu Bac Lieu (Bac Lieu Mandarin's Son) film. 

She said the consulate general also sponsored VND3 billion ($119,800) for Vietnamese films, including Inside the Yellow Cocoon Shell, which won the Caméra d'Or, an award of the 2023 Cannes Film Festival for the best first feature film and fetched box-office revenue of $500,000 in France.

Nguyen Quang Thanh, deputy general director of Ho Chi Minh City Finance and Investment State-Owned Company, said the municipal People’s Council has approved a list of cinema projects eligible for public investment and offered preferential lending rates to some film producers.

The HIFF 2024 opened on Saturday last week and will last until Saturday this week.

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