Vietnam tries to find ways to both control and untie its movie industry

The draft revised Law on Cinema has been a topic of discussion not only in the media and on social networks but also at a recent National Assembly session.

"It is a fact that we have to admit that our Law on Cinema has not caught up with the development of the movie market in general and online movie platforms in particular," said media expert Nguyen Phong Viet.

The rapid development of the film industry, the cinema system and the rapid growth of the cinema market in Vietnam with an average rate of 25% per year and the appearance of locally-made movies earning revenue of millions of USD shows that the Law on Cinema needs to adapt to the development of the domestic cinema industry.

A scene from the movie "Taste".

In addition, the intense development of online movie platforms, especially Netflix with a huge movie store reaching more than 200 million users around the world, including Vietnamese, requires the Law on Cinema to be revised because the Law on Cinema 2006 and the revised law in 2009 do not have any article on movies released on the Internet.

The Law on Cinema was first approved in 2006, and revised three years later. Most recently, the amended Law on Cinema was submitted for discussion at the 15th National Assembly session in October-November 2021.

Thus, it has taken 12 years for the Law on Cinema to continue to be revised. During that time, the domestic and international film industry has come a long way, especially the development of online movie platforms.

Some experts have proposed adding new content to the revised Law on Cinema, such as withdrawing a licence or banning the screening of films with actors who violate ethics.

Ta Quang Dong, Deputy Minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism, told the local media that the compilation agency tries to specify that what is to be banned would not affect the creativity of artists. While the prohibited acts in the revised Law on Cinema 2009 are stipulated in four points, the latest revised draft names the prohibited cinematographic activities and prohibited acts. The draft mentions the distribution of films that have been withdrawn from screening or or the movie classification license withdrawn. This is new content that arose after the case of the Vi (Taste) movie, which was banned from screening. The producer changed the nationality of the movie to bring it to international film festivals.

Since the revised Law on Cinema 2009 took effect, only five films have been banned from screening. According to statistics of the Vietnam Cinema Department, from 2015 to June 2021, no Vietnamese films were banned, while 20-30 foreign films were banned from distribution in Vietnam.

Another new content in the revised Law on Cinema is related to films released in cyberspace, a field that has grown rapidly but has never been included in the Law on Cinema before.

The most notable regulation is: "Organizations and individuals that disseminate films in cyberspace: Must classify and display the results of movie classification according to the provisions of Article 33 of this Law and take responsibility before the law on the classification of movies. The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism shall assume the prime responsibility for, and coordinate with the Ministry of Information and Communications in inspecting and handling the self-classification of popular films in cyberspace in accordance with law; Businesses providing infrastructure services in cyberspace are responsible for managing and removing violated films at the request of competent state agencies.” Thus, it can be understood that the management of online movies is in the form of post-inspection.

‘The Third Wife’ was withdrawn from Vietnam cinemas amidst child actress controversy.

Vi Kien Thanh, Director of the Vietnam Cinema Department, said that with the large number of films released in cyberspace, the pre-screening method will be costly, and is inconsistent with current international practices. However, post-inspection can easily miss films that violate the rules or harmful products. Therefore, it is necessary to develop clear and easy-to-understand film evaluation criteria.

Dr. Ngo Phuong Lan, former Director of the Vietnam Cinema Department, said the criteria must be clear, and must not be misunderstood or have misleading and controversial things. In addition, sanctions must be strong enough to prevent films that violate the rules.

Media expert Nguyen Phong Viet told VietNamNet: "In my opinion, it is impossible to control movie content online at the moment. Online movie platforms label content very carefully. It depends on the viewer's perception or adults’ setting up access to accounts.”

Viet added: "The paid online movie platforms have clearly labeled the movies they provide. They even allow viewers to set restriction of access to movies based on the viewer's age on each account to make sure that accounts of child viewers can't access over-age movies. So, it's hard to say they do not control the content in the first place.”

“The revised Law on Cinema can control local online movie platforms but it would be a long way to do the same with foreign-managed film platforms. We cannot pre-check but only post-check online movies. Or in the best case we can impose certain sanctions on movies that are politically offensive, which may make the censors of online movie platforms to be more careful in their job."

Luu Dinh Phuc, Director of the Department of Radio, Television and Electronic Information (Ministry of Information and Communications), said that in this revised Law on Cinema, the Government and the National Assembly introduced two options and the Ministry of Information and Communications supported option 2: movie classification and post-inspection, with strict sanctions imposed on violators.

My Anh