Vietnamese film researcher Martino Cipriani. Photo coutersy of RMIT

Martino Cipriani worked as a colourist on award-winning Vietnamese filmmaker Đặng Nhật Minh's Hoa Nhài (Jasmine). The film premiered at the Hà Nội International Film Festival in 2022.

Cipriani is a PhD candidate at the University of Amsterdam researching Vietnamese film legacy, covering its background, history, and contemporary situation. He currently teaches digital film and video at the School of Communication & Design at RMIT Vietnam.

Cipriani spoke about the preservation of motion pictures in Việt Nam.

Can you provide some perspective on the development of the Việt Nam film industry?

Việt Nam has a unique historical background with key phases such as the colonial period, the revolution, đổi mới (renewal), and post-đổi mới. Each of them corresponds to a distinct theme in Vietnamese cinema.

Due to its historical significance and unique qualities, the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s appear to represent the culmination of Việt Nam's cinema. At that time, cinema was totally funded by the government.

Artists were commissioned to create films and were provided with the necessary resources by the State. Vietnamese filmmakers could experiment with originality to generate fascinating films.

The contemporary Vietnamese cinema industry is expanding exponentially yet in a haphazard manner.

It's not a well-funded film industry, meaning there are some great producerrs, innovative concepts, and excellent movies, but the industry as a whole is not strong.

It has evolved into a predominantly private industry. Hà Nội was once the centre of cinema, but now HCM City, whose residents are more business-oriented, leads the country in filmmaking.

This may be controversial, but I find production from the 1960s and 1970s more intriguing than commercial production, even though we have competitive filmmakers today.

These days, everything is for business, and there is no real backing for art films.

Vợ Chồng A Phủ (A Phủ and His Wife), a 1961 film, is one that I absolutely adore and is exactly what I'm describing. The visual style is phenomenal, and some scenes are so distinctive. It features the social life of the ethnic minorities in the northwest of Việt Nam with the socialist revolution taking place in the background.

Despite being titled A Phủ and His Wife, the wife is actually the main character from start to finish, and she is an incredible heroine with a brave narrative arc throughout the entire movie.

What is your opinion regarding the storage and preservation of motion pictures in Việt Nam?

Film legacy is an intriguing but challenging subject. The key difference between analogue film and digital cinema has been technology. It has been a revolution in the way we make this culture.

What is the significance of heritage? Is it a matter of cultural memory? Is it a piece of art? Many individuals do not consider analog films essential enough to preserve. Film rolls decay faster than we imagined, and you must protect them, or they will be lost forever.

Cinema was previously more popular in Việt Nam, with more interest from central institutions and stronger financial support. This explains why the 1960s-1970s films have been preserved so well.

More effort is needed to address technical constraints and a lack of funds. With the help of expert archivists, the Việt Nam Film Institute has gathered and preserved Vietnamese films en masse.

Its huge film collection is one of the best in Southeast Asia. Still, they require additional funding since maintaining the archive is an expensive endeavour. Meanwhile, Việt Nam has extremely limited funds for film preservation.

I am also attempting to create an updated version of A Phủ and His Wife by digitising it in partnership with the institute and am currently looking for funds to do so.

What advice do you give to Vietnamese filmmakers?

My recommendation is to be aware of the limits and issues of using digital production methods. Technology is great and it provides us with a wealth of information and the ability to access things instantly from anywhere in the world.

It is also less expensive, yet not made for long-term existence. Data is incredibly sensitive and vulnerable, especially in film industry.

The preservation of digital files is a major issue. It comes at a high price and there are no resources available currently, but everything is the same all around the world.

Filmmakers should consider what their work is and how they see their work in the years to come. If a film is deemed timeless, like a work of art, even after 50 years, it cannot be preserved by simply saving it on a hard drive.

An additional significant problem is that filmmakers cannot preserve films at home. People are no longer submitting film to the institute.

The organisation, which has the mandate to archive Vietnamese films, is not receiving new ones because producers do not consider it a reliable source for the preservation of their digital movies. This means that while we may still have all the films made in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s, we are likely to lose today’s motion pictures.

What could be done to improve the preservation of the Vietnamese film legacy?

Preserving the Vietnamese film heritage is a mutual responsibility shared by the motion picture industry, the public and non-profit film archives.

As much as making a successful film requires dedication from hundreds of people, ensuring the existence of film will necessitate a collaborative effort from all film institutions and organisations.

At RMIT, as a higher education institute, I want my students to grasp the fragility of digital means and how things function technically to maintain and explain our cultural heritage to future generations.

Recent film industry initiatives must continue and expand for the Vietnamese film legacy to survive, both as independent efforts by each firm and through studio-archive alliances that combine the strengths of both parties.

Film has been a significant cultural expression of Việt Nam during the last century, and it deserves more public attention. VNS