State-owned film studios in review

A scene in Hanoi, HanoiVietNamNet Bridge – With movies like the White Silk Dress and the Rebel, private film studios are showing off their potentials, making those interested in Vietnamese cinema wonder where State-owned studios are in the race.
Falling behind
A director of a State-owned studio once said that no amount of money could solve the fundamental problems of State-owned companies: bulky bureaucracy and a passivity which has been existing since the time of government subsidies.
Politics has created works steeped in propaganda content unattractive to audiences. High-quality products such as Pao’s Story and Living in Fear resort to joining international film festivals as a face-saver. Even award-winning films as these don’t attract viewers.
State-owned studios’ marketing efforts have been unprofessional and unsuccessful. Vietnam Film’s marketing campaign for Right-Side Heart Campaign or Film Studio 1’s efforts to advertise Living in Fear, for instance, haven’t done anything to increase ticket sales.
Quality aside, the commercial success and professional distribution of recent products like Long-Legged Girls, Female Robber, When Men Are Pregnant, Hired Birth, Fighter Story, and Dancing Boys, and even the strait-laced high-quality The White Silk Dress, seem to suggest that private studios have precisely what State-owned ones don’t.
Partnership: a good way out?
Battling against private studios, several State-owned companies such as Liberation Film have been more active in producing commercial films attractive to viewers like Dancing Girls, Getting a Saigon Wife or Shoot as It Rings. Most of these movies, however, can only compete during Tet, the only season during the year for domestic films.
Thus, working with foreign partners seems to be a good way out. But many joint-ventures of high quality haven’t won Vietnamese viewers’ hearts. Hanoi, Hanoi, a Vietnamese-Chinese film, which has recently received the Golden Kite for Best Feature Film, is yet to play in theatres.
Many award-winning projects before it have failed due to overdue distribution: they were screened so long after being awarded that the public almost forgot what awards they had received. Yet, working with private companies seems more fruitful. Shoot As It Rings, a commercial success of the 2007 Tet, was produced by Liberation and Dao Thu studios.
Vietnam Film’s and Thien Ngan Film’s recent collaboration on two future projects, Death Dance and Wood Rescuer, for instance, should suggest to State-owned studios that working with their domestic private counterparts may be the best way to survive.
There have been talks about the government’s privatising State-owned companies. But when this process will take place and how long it will take are still matters of great uncertainty. Many say that these companies as well as their management units don’t want privatisation, which often means cutting down on jobs and independent financing without government support.
For the past few years, the progress of Vietnamese cinema has seeming been due chiefly to the efforts of private as well as overseas Vietnamese companies rather than State-owned studios.
(Source: SGGP)