The exchange aims to introduce and honor the important contributions of generations of artists to the country's cinema, and at the same time act as a bridge to bring young audiences and artists closer together. The guests of the exchange are director People's Artist Dang Nhat Minh, director Meritorious Artist Huu Muoi and Meritorious Artist Minh Chau. These are all talented artists who have made many contributions to Vietnamese cinema.
Before the exchange, the film “Don’t Burn” by director Dang Nhat Minh was screened, which “warmed up” the emotions of the students. Feeling the enthusiastic affection of the young people for his film, director Dang Nhat Minh was deeply moved and said: “This is the most priceless and precious gift in my filmmaking career. The affection of the young audience makes me feel more secure about the future of Vietnamese cinema”.
Through the story of his career shared with students, the veteran filmmaker said that he came to cinema completely by chance. Born into a family of intellectuals in the capital, with his father being the famous professor Dang Van Ngu, and his siblings all working in medicine, he was assigned to study to become a Russian interpreter. With this job, he soon had access to many documents of different cinemas in the world. From the sessions of interpreting for Soviet films shown in Vietnam, he had the opportunity to approach Soviet and world cinema to accumulate for himself initial knowledge of the art of cinema. Although he never attended any training school, thanks to his talent, passion and love for the cultural and humanistic values of the nation, Dang Nhat Minh soon became a leading director of Vietnamese cinema with a series of films winning many major domestic and international awards such as: "When will October come", "Guava season", "Girl on the river", "Hanoi winter in 1946", "Missing the countryside", "Return", "Don't burn"... Director Dang Nhat Minh's films are highly appreciated for recreating life through cinematic language in a way that is everyday, subtle and attractive, rich in poetry and philosophy of life. The characters in his films often reveal hidden corners of thoughts and feelings deep in the human soul and have a strong desire to live.
In particular, the film “When Will October Come” produced in 1981 is considered a classic of Vietnamese cinema, winning the Golden Lotus Award at the 7th Vietnam Film Festival in 1985, the Special Award at the Asia-Pacific International Film Festival in 1989, the Certificate of Merit from the Peace Protection Committee at the Moscow International Film Festival in 1985, the Special Jury Award at the Hawaii International Film Festival in 1985 and is one of the eighteen best Asian films of all time voted by CNN. But few people know that director Dang Nhat Minh filmed the film in very difficult circumstances with an old camera, and had to re-shoot scenes many times because the camera damaged many pieces of film.
When asked by a student: "According to you, the secret to making a successful film" - the director humorously answered - "is that when making a film, don't think about awards at all". The director shared that when making a film, he only thinks about how to best express the content and ideas of that film: "When making a film, I am in a trance-like state, always thinking about how to achieve the best performance, sometimes I don't even care about eating and drinking...". From a professional perspective, director Dang Nhat Minh believes that the success of his films is due to his luck in finding the right actor for the role: "If it weren't for artist Minh Chau, no one could have portrayed the character Nguyet better in "The Girl on the River", or if it weren't for Huu Muoi, he wouldn't have brought such success to the character of teacher Khang in "When will the Tenth Month Come?".
Also sharing about her passion for acting, Meritorious Artist Minh Chau - a talented actress known as "the one with the eyes that speak" - shared: "Love is not enough, to be successful in any field, especially in acting, you need to have true passion, live and die for the profession, "struggle" with each role". Becoming famous with many fateful roles, having won the Best Actress award for the role of Nguyet in the films "The Girl on the River" and "The Woman Playing with Sand", Meritorious Artist Minh Chau is also remembered by the public for many famous films on television in recent times such as: "The Surplus", "Nguyen Thi Minh Khai", "Bi Thuong Tinh Uy"... In the eyes of fans, Minh Chau is not only talented but also has a cinematic beauty that stands the test of time and always wants to challenge herself with difficult roles, even though she has reached the pinnacle of glory in her career.
She said that there were times when the living conditions of an artist were difficult, she decided to temporarily stop acting, not make films for three years to find another job. “But then I became “addicted” to acting like I was addicted to heroin, I couldn’t leave it, I returned to cinema with a passion that burned even more fiercely” – Minh Chau talked about the ups and downs of her career.
The third guest – Meritorious Artist Huu Muoi – Vice Head of the Directing Department, University of Theatre and Cinema – maintains his passion for cinema in a different way. He was once famous for his role as teacher Thu (in the film “Vu Dai Village on That Day”), teacher Khang (in the film “When Will October Come” – Best Actor Award at the 7th Vietnam Film Festival in 1985). After his success as an actor, Meritorious Artist Huu Muoi chose another path to be more closely associated with cinema, which was to become a director. Most recently, director Huu Muoi was successful as the director of the film “Mui Co Chay” – Silver Lotus Award at the 17th Vietnam Film Festival (December 2011), Golden Kite Award by the Vietnam Cinema Association (March 2012), Certificate of Merit for Outstanding War-themed Film by the Ministry of National Defense.
When asked “Is becoming an actor and then a director a common rule for excellent actors?”, he said: Acting is an interesting profession and hard to give up for those who have chosen to pursue the acting career. But he himself, after a period of acting and learning from many directors, wanted to tell his own life stories and put into them the philosophies of life that he cherished. Therefore, he switched to studying directing and started this new but also attractive job when he was no longer young. That is how he maintained his love for cinema – not necessarily the path of most actors but the right choice for him personally.
Besides life stories and career stories, students asked the artists “hot” questions about the current difficulties of Vietnamese cinema, about the change in audience tastes that has led many filmmakers astray, about the differences between old and new filmmaking methods…
Meritorious Artist Minh Chau confided: her generation of artists and her contemporaries only knew how to act in films, feeling that it was the meaning of their lives, not being influenced by too many temptations of money. Young people today have more opportunities to choose a career, but not everyone dares to trade it to spend their whole life pursuing a career that they are passionate about.
Director Dang Nhat Minh shared his opinion: “For me, there are only two ways to make movies, one is to make them for art, the other is to make them for business purposes.” Currently, many filmmakers aim for profit, thus hitting the public’s taste to the maximum, producing movies with low life-orientation values. This is extremely dangerous, because it ruins a whole generation of audiences, making them not know what to believe in and what values to cherish in life.
To change this situation, the famous director believes that it depends entirely on young audiences, those who have knowledge, understanding, and the ability to perceive beauty. The students of the University of Social Sciences and Humanities will be the future audiences of Vietnamese cinema - those who will say no to nonsense films, to easy filmmaking methods - to force filmmakers to be more serious and strict in their creative work.
The exchange ended with regret for many students because there were still many questions that the artists had not answered. But certainly, the love for the profession, the dedication to the roles, the way the artists overcame difficulties to live with their passion for cinema will be valuable lessons in the life of the young people.