At the 31st Busan International Film Festival, a seminar organised by the Việt Nam Film Development Association (VFDA) put Vietnamese cinema front and centre. Titled 'Film Festivals – A Bridge Between Vietnamese Cinema and the World', the session gathered directors, curators, producers and officials to talk co-production, distribution and how festivals can turn local stories into international releases.
The tone was upbeat but honest. VFDA chairwoman Ngô Phương Lan, who also runs the Đà Nẵng Asian Film Festival (DANAFF), noted that Vietnamese cinema has real momentum — young talent, a growing domestic box office — but lacks the support systems to convert that into a lasting global presence. BIFF founder Kim Dong-ho praised DANAFF's rise and voiced hope for deeper Việt Nam–Korea exchange, while ambassador Vũ Hồ pushed for concrete collaboration on scripts, post-production, training and distribution, with a nod to using AI responsibly.
Director Nguyễn Hoàng Điệp, back in Busan after 12 years with her new film 1982, described how the festival's project labs shaped her career. Her lingering frustration: even after festival success, independent and art-house Vietnamese films struggle to find screening venues at home. Indonesian director Yosep Anggi Noen offered a counterpoint to festival-chasing — make the films you care about, not ones engineered for selection committees.
The most travel-adjacent thread was Đà Nẵng's ambition. City official Nguyễn Thị Anh Thi said DANAFF Industry Days could mature into a proper market, borrowing from Busan's Asian Contents and Film Market, with the city pitching co-productions, rights trading and its cultural heritage as filmable intellectual property. She admitted procedures, infrastructure and services still need upgrading to lure international crews. Hà Nội's tourism director Phạm Tuấn Long made his own pitch, citing the capital's heritage sites, architecture, craft villages and creative workforce as reasons to shoot there.
There were no easy answers on money: VFDA reps confirmed Việt Nam has no central film production fund to point producers to, though the association can broker connections with local authorities. What it does have is DANAFF Talents — acting workshops running since 2023, plus script development and incubation programmes built with experts from Columbia University and the University of Southern California.
Why should a traveller care? Because film festivals are becoming part of Việt Nam's visitor economy. DANAFF each year gives Đà Nẵng a cultural calendar hook beyond its beaches, and as the city courts international productions, the places on screen — from Hội An-adjacent heritage to central coast cityscapes — become the itineraries of tomorrow. Even if you never attend a screening, the push to professionalise Vietnamese film means more festivals, more cinema-themed events and more reasons to time a trip around them.
For film fans specifically: DANAFF is the one to watch, both for Southeast Asian premieres and for the sense of an industry finding its footing. Busan's festival, meanwhile, remains the regional launchpad where Vietnamese titles surface first.
Reporting by Vietnam News Life
