HCM CITY — Three foreign film projects in Việt Nam have been approved by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism this year.

The project of the French-based Les Films du Worso began in early January.

The technical crew has arrived in Hà Nội and northern provinces, such as Cao Bằng and Bắc Kạn, to prepare for the company’s new film End of the World.  

The film’s director Guillaume Nicloux and his staff will travel to Ninh Bình and Đà Nẵng before moving to Hải Phòng City.

They will also visit Quảng Ninh and Nam Định provinces.

Nicloux is a talented director and scriptwriter. His Valley of Love was nominated in the Cannes Film Festival 2015.   

Shooting for the film is scheduled from March to late May.

Vietnamese-American director Stephane Gauger began his new film project, The Oath of Love, in HCM City this week. 

The film staff will visit tourist sites in Bà Rịa-Vũng Tàu Province.

The shoot will also take place in HCM City and the Cửu Long (Mekong) River Delta provinces of Bạc Liêu, An Giang,  Kiên Giang, Trà Vinh, Vĩnh Long and Long An.

Shooting will begin in April to early next year.

StarVN, a private film company from HCM City, has worked with Thai director Yuttana Suntivong on a film project this month.

The film crew, including photography director Decha Srimanta, will be in Cần Thơ, Đà Nẵng and Thừa Thiên-Huế from March to December.

They will conduct research for the shoot for the romantic film Story of Swan Lake, based on a script by Vietnamese and Thai writers.

Three films are expected to hit theatres in late 2018.

Last year, Hollywood director and screenwriter Jordan Charles Vogt-Roberts and his staff were in Ninh Bình Province to shoot Kong: Skull Island.

A studio covering 25 hectares of land, located in Ninh Bình’s Hoa Lư District, was built to serve the film crew.  

The shoot took place in Tràng An, Vân Long and Tam Cốc in Ninh Bình before moving to Phong Nha-Kẻ Bàng National Park, Rào Nan River and Yên Phù Lake in Quảng Bình Province and Hạ Long Bay in Quảng Ninh.

According to an unofficial source, around 10 per cent of the film’s total expenses, US$160 million, was spent on filming in Việt Nam.

Kong: Skull Island, starring actors Brie Larson, Tom Hiddleston, John C Reilly, Samuel L Jackson and Toby Kebbell, is screening in cinemas worldwide.

It has earned around US$ 4.6 million in ticket sales in Việt Nam. 

“Many moviegoers around the world have seen Kong: Skull Island in cinemas. We think that filming in destinations in Việt Nam is a good chance to introduce the beauty of the country to the world,” said Hà Quang Long, a senior official of Quảng Ninh Province.  — VNS