Vietnam has set up a national film pavilion at the Asian Contents and Film Market in Busan, South Korea, part of the 31st Busan International Film Festival. Run by the Vietnam Film Development Association (VFDA) at the BEXCO convention centre, the pavilion is essentially a shopfront for the country's movie business — and, indirectly, for its beaches, cities and landscapes.

The stand packs in a lot: an overview of Vietnamese cinema, details of the production environment and the support crews can expect on the ground, plus something called the Production Attraction Index, a tool foreign producers can use to judge whether Vietnam fits their project. VFDA's team is holding face-to-face meetings with producers, distributors and festival organisers to line up co-productions and encourage crews to shoot on location in Vietnam.

A big slice of the pitch belongs to Đà Nẵng. The city's Asian Film Festival, DANAFF, launched in 2023 by VFDA and the Đà Nẵng People's Committee, is being promoted heavily, with publications, photos and video teasing the upcoming fifth edition and its talent-development programmes. Over four editions DANAFF has grown into a meeting point for Vietnamese and wider Asian cinema, and VFDA wants it to become a year-round platform for project development and regional cooperation, not just an annual event.

Đà Nẵng already has a claim to screen fame: the Indian production Love in Vietnam shot there in 2025. City official Nguyễn Thị Anh Thi attended the pavilion's events to reinforce the message that the city is open for film business. Notable visitors to the stand included Filipino director Brillante Ma Mendoza, Jean-Marc Thérouanne of France's Vesoul International Festival of Asian Cinema, an Indonesian culture ministry delegation, and Kim Dong Ho, the former BIFF chairman.

Why should a traveller care? Film shoots and festivals tend to leave a trail. A city actively marketed to international directors usually invests in the things visitors enjoy — infrastructure, hotels, and a reasons-to-visit narrative. For film fans, DANAFF is a genuinely fresh option: a young, growing Asian festival in one of Vietnam's most liveable coastal cities, held somewhere without the crowds and prices of Cannes or Busan. And the images of Hanoi and Đà Nẵng being shown to producers are the same postcard views tourists go for — rivers, beaches, and a fast-modernising central coast.

VFDA isn't stopping in Korea. After Busan, the association takes the same promotional roadshow to the Tokyo International Film Festival in late October, part of a deliberate strategy to keep Vietnam visible at the big Asian film markets. Expect more foreign crews — and more film-induced tourism — in Vietnam over the next few years.

Story via Vietnam News Life.