After wrapping its inaugural version, the Ho Chi Minh Movie Competition (HIFF) has set its sights on changing into the biggest movie competition in Southeast Asia.
Showcasing greater than 100 movies over eight days, the competition acquired over 280,000 guests, together with worldwide visitors, over eight days earlier this month (April 6-13).
Business professionals current on the competition instructed Deadline that they have been impressed by the size and ambition of the competition, which included a script lab, workshop and challenge market and a “content material and tech expo” specializing in new media and rising applied sciences.
“It may be mentioned to be successful, though there are nonetheless just a few issues we might have performed higher if we had extra time to arrange,” HIFF Govt Director Pham Minh Toan instructed Deadline. “We’re completely satisfied as a result of many of the worldwide associates who attended responded positively — what occurred in Ho Chi Minh Metropolis over the eight days exceeded their expectations of a first-time movie competition.”
Pham runs Vietfest, the occasion firm behind HIFF. He has additionally organized a number of editions of the Ho Chi Minh Metropolis Worldwide Music Competition (HOZO). With authorities assist by means of the Ho Chi Minh Metropolis Folks’s Committee and the town’s Division of Tradition and Sports activities, the movie competition needs to cement Vietnam as a prime participant within the regional movie business.
“A world movie competition is a mandatory push for the imaginative and prescient of Ho Chi Minh Metropolis changing into the middle of Southeast Asian cinema within the coming years,” mentioned Pham. “The worldwide movie competition will appeal to worldwide filmmakers, studios and distribution firms to Ho Chi Minh Metropolis, thereby selling the town’s movie market to develop and combine with the world.”
In 2023, Vietnam took the very best field workplace income in Southeast Asia, raking in simply over $150M and simply surpassing Indonesia’s $114M. That is an distinctive determine, particularly given Vietnam’s inhabitants of round 100 million individuals in comparison with Indonesia’s 277 million. In 2019, a 12 months earlier than the pandemic, Vietnam’s field workplace recorded $173M. Pham mentioned that the Vietnamese movie business is well-positioned to develop quickly within the coming years.
Nonetheless, he identified a number of challenges that lie forward for HIFF. The best precedence is constructing a serious cinema heart the place large-scale film occasions could be held. This 12 months, the competition unfold its programming throughout a number of venues, together with the Sai Gon Opera Home, Lam Son Park, Nguyen Hue Strolling Avenue and different cinema theaters throughout Ho Chi Minh.
“The size of HIFF is sort of massive with many movies and actions, and we should not have sufficient infrastructure prepared for such a scale, so we’ve to separate it up throughout many alternative places,” mentioned Pham. “Due to this fact, the group and operations are additionally extra sophisticated.”
A number of movies have been additionally faraway from the ultimate program as a consequence of censorship by native authorities. We hear the nation’s censorship laws required sure movies to make edits earlier than screening, however that there was not sufficient time for many to conform. Ultimately, only one was screened with the edits made. “We’re in Vietnam and should observe the coverage right here,” mentioned Pham.
HIFF ran numerous packages, together with a Southeast Asia competitors, a primary or second movie competitors and Vietnam Panorama. Filipino filmmaker Sheron Dayoc’s The Gospel of the Beast took dwelling the competition’s Golden Star Award.
Singaporean director Nicole Midori Woodford received the Jury Prize for Final Shadow At First Gentle and Malaysian auteur Chai Chee Sum received Finest Director for Oasis Of Now; the movie additionally received the very best actress prize for Ta Thi Diu. Chai Yee Wei’s Wonderland acquired two performing awards — greatest actor for Mark Lee and greatest supporting actor for Peter Yu.