Da Nang poses great advantages and potential for developing its cultural industry thanks to its rich and valuable system of relics, scenic spots, and festivals. In addition, the city identifies cinema as a direction to promote the development of its cultural industry, advertising its image to international friends. This is consistent with the city's development orientation in the spirit of Conclusion No. 79-KL/TW of the Politburo on continuing to implement Resolution No. 43-NQ/TW of the Politburo (12^th tenure) on building and developing Da Nang to 2030, with a vision to 2045.

The Da Nang Asian Film Festival has increasingly created its own mark. Photo: XUAN DUNG

Need to turn potential into strength

Cultural industry is becoming a trend and is identified as an important part contributing to the country's growth. Da Nang also identifies cultural industry as one of the city's breakthroughs and new directions to develop culture on par with the economy.

According to the municipal Department of Culture and Sports, cultural tourism is one of the key areas and priorities for development of the city. In recent years, the cultural industry has always paid attention to the promotion of the system of relics, scenic spots, and festivals in tourism economic activities.

Typical examples are the special national relics of Marble Mountains and the Museum of Cham Sculpture which attract millions of visitors each year, and generate a significant source of budget revenue. In particular, the Hai Van Gate relic site has created more diversity in destinations for the city in developing cultural tourism.

The city has been concentrating on developing festival and event activities, especially elevating the Quan The Am (Avalokitesvara) Festival and the International Fireworks Festival. The Da Nang Asian Film Festival (DANAFF) has become a regular event, creating its own mark.

Thanks to the city's attention and investment, the development of the cultural industry has recently had many positive changes. However, the reality is that the cultural industry in Da Nang still has many limitations, is not large-scale and lacks regular and strong international cooperation and linkages.

According to Mr. Bui Van Tieng, Chairman of the Union of Literature and Arts Associations of the city, developing the cultural industry is like rowing upstream, not to advance is to drop back. For example, with cinema, many localities, including Ha Noi, Ho Chi Minh City, Phu Yen and Khanh Hoa, are pursuing the goal of linking cinema with tourism

If Da Nang does not take advantage of resources through appropriate public-private partnership models to maintain DANAFF, it will be difficult to achieve the dream of becoming a coastal film festival capital like Busan, he noted.

As for the field of handicrafts, Mr. Tieng stressed the need for the Non Nuoc stone carving craft village to overcome the situation of mass production of commercialized stone statues, increase handicraft products, and demonstrate the process of "breathing soul into stone" by artisans. He also underlined the necessity for craft villages related to cuisine such as Nam O fish sauce or Tuy Loan rice paper to improve product quality and maintain the competitiveness of their brands.

In the field of performing arts, Da Nang has an advantage over many other localities in traditional theater, associated with two national and international intangible cultural heritages, including: Quang-style ‘Tuong’ (classical drama) and ‘Bai Choi’ (a traditional Vietnamese game combining folklore singing and picks from a deck of card).

Former Chairman of the city’s Stage Artists Association Nguyen Thanh Tung said that the performing arts sector in Da Nang is being invested in a scattered manner, not focusing on its inherent strengths. With the advantage of traditional theater, the city needs to focus on investing in and developing quality plays and performances that carry local identity.

The art of ‘Bai Choi’ singing needs to establish an appraisal council with expertise and experience to have standard samples and limit the current situation of singing incorrectly. “When coming to a new land, everyone wants to see strange things that they don’t have. ‘Tuong’ and ‘Bai Choi’ singing are things that many other places do not have but Da Nang. Therefore, we need to develop traditional stage arts into a strength, both to preserve national culture and to promote the local cultural industry,” Mr. Tung emphasised.

The Hai Van Gate relic site needs to continue to invest in effective exploitation. Photo: XUAN DUNG

Investment in cinema

To make Da Nang become one of the three key cultural industrial centres of the country (along with Ha Noi and Ho Chi Minh City), it will take a lot of time as well as synchronous implementation of many solutions. However, with its potential and advantages, Da Nang will have favourable conditions to develop the cultural industry.

The successful organisation of DANAFF twice has created a certain resonance despite being a young film festival. Currently, the project to build a film studio has been included by the Prime Minister in the list of projects in the city's planning until 2050.

Moreover, Resolution 136/2024/NQ15 of the National Assembly on the organisation of urban government and piloting a number of specific mechanisms and policies for Da Nang also stipulates public-private partnership policies in the cultural field, facilitating the mobilisation of social resources to develop cultural industries, especially cinema. Thus, Da Nang can confidently pursue this industry known as the seventh art to become a city of film events.

Aside from the aforementioned advantages and favourable policies, Da Nang still needs many factors to achieve the abovementioned goal. According to experts in the field of cinema, the secret to turning a small film festival into a famous brand known to many people is to be facilitated by the government, both in terms of funding and infrastructure.

In addition, there needs to be a long-term policy on training young talents, as well as the audience. At the same time, it is necessary to proactively seek international projects, and attract many producers from many places around the world.

Sharing at DANAFF II, Director Park Kwang Su, Chairman of Busan International Film Festival (South Korea) emphasised that the importance of the factors that make up a sustainable film festival brand is to have a smart audience that can protect the film festival, or to have a way to attract many young audiences.

“The audience is the important factor that determines the success or failure of a film festival. Therefore, to develop DANAFF, in addition to good films, the city needs to have policies and solutions to attract audiences” Director Park Kwang Su affirmed.

According to Director of the municipal Department of Culture and Sports Pham Tan Xu, with the orientation of building a “City of events and festivals”, DANAFF has been and continues to be expected to become a brand event of the city, parallel to the International Fireworks Festival. This is one of the city's outstanding activities in promoting cultural industry, especially cinema, aiming to turn Da Nang into a city of events, and a bridge for filmmakers, directors, actors, and audiences at both home and abroad to exchange and cooperate in cinema. Therefore, the city has issued a number of support policies, creating conditions to attract film crews and major producers in the world to choose Da Nang as a filming location, serving the production of film genres.

"The city will provide maximum support and boost the promotion strategy to film crews in a more synchronous, effective, and powerful manner. At the same time, it will continue to mobilize local businesses, especially accommodation and food establishments, and tourist attractions, to join hands to create a mutually beneficial mechanism and some special incentive mechanisms to facilitate film producers," said Mr. Xu.

Reporting by KHOI NGUYEN - Translating by M.DUNG