Actifilms Saigon - Vietnam News

More bodies recovered from Vietnam bridge collapse

saigontoine — Fri, 28 Sep 2007 15:12:00 +0700

As it was not enough for the vietnamese workers, this drama happend in Cantho destroying life of many families..

REUTERS - Thu Sep 27, 2007 9:48am EDT

More bodies recovered from Vietnam bridge collapse

By Ho Binh Minh

CAN THO, Vietnam (Reuters) - Recovery crews found eight more bodies in the rubble of a Vietnamese bridge on Thursday, taking the death toll from the collapse to around 60, officials said.

As many as 180 were injured, some of them suffering critical head wounds, in Wednesday morning's collapse of a section of a Japanese-funded bridge under construction in the southern Mekong Delta. Some 250 workers were on site at the time.

Military doctor Colonel Mai Ninh Nhat said two workers had also died of their injuries on Thursday.

Relatives crowded the military hospital in Can Tho city, which was visited by yellow-garbed Buddhist monks offering sympathies and cash to the victims' families.

President Nguyen Minh Triet visited Can Tho general hospital and the scene of the collapse near the busy Hau River that separates Can Tho from Vinh Long province. The site is 170 km (105 miles) southwest of Ho Chi Minh City.

"I visited many families. I share their pain. These pains are extreme," Triet told reporters.

"This is a regrettable accident but we wish that contractors, regulators will draw a lesson to overcome its consequences and ensure absolute safety."

Underdeveloped Vietnam is ramping up infrastructure projects to keep pace with an economy growing at more than 8 percent a year.

There were conflicting reports about the death toll with one contractor reporting 60 killed and the official Vietnam News Agency said 64 died and 180 were injured.

Officials said eight bodies were found on Thursday, the newspaper Saigon Giai Phong (Liberation Saigon) reported.

Nguyen Thi Chien said her son-in-law Nguyen Van Chien, injured in the collapse, had gone to work on the bridge because he could earn more money there than from river fishing, his family's traditional business.

"He does not know anything from yesterday," she said of her son-in-law as she sat in the yard of the military hospital in Can Tho. The hospital is treating the most serious cases and many of them were unconscious.

MOST SERIOUS ACCIDENT

Transport Minister Ho Nghia Dung said in an interview with Reuters TV that the collapse was "the most serious ever bridge incident in the history of the transport sector".

Dung was one of several cabinet ministers in the ruling Communist Party to visit the scene of the disaster.

He said construction would resume as soon as the site was cleared and safe.

The twisted mass of steel, broken concrete and bent scaffolding stood at the height of a five-storey building about 500 meters (550 yards) from the river in Vinh Long.

The reason for the accident was not immediately known, but officials said rains may have softened the foundations, causing scaffolding to collapse and bringing down a 90-metre (300-foot) section that was being worked on.

One preliminary estimate of the cost put it at $2.5 million.

A spokesman for one of the Japanese companies in a joint venture to build the 2.75-km (1.7-mile) long bridge said 16 of its workers were all accounted for.

Work on the bridge started in 2004 to link Can Tho and Vinh Long province and it was scheduled for completion next year.

Filmmakers find funds from abroad

saigontoine — Wed, 19 Sep 2007 10:27:00 +0700

VNS, (19-09-2007)

Several Vietnamese filmmakers have managed to secure financial assistance from abroad, mainly from France and the US, after the Government cut subsidies to the film industry.

"Getting State funds for films is very difficult," director Vinh Son said. "Only a few films are selected each year for the subsidy of about VND2 billion (US$123,000) per film.

"The money is not enough and we must tie up with foreign companies or get assistance from foreign organisations," he added.

A dozen organisations globally offer assistance for making films, according to local filmmakers.

Last year’s Trang Noi Day Gieng (A Moon Mirroring Well) by Son got $206,000 from Fonds Sud Cinema and $111,000 from Fonds Francophone, both of France.

The two funds have, in the last few years, financed many Vietnamese films including Me Thao Thoi Vang Bong (Me Thao in the Golden Days) and Thoi Xa Vang (A Distant Past).

A Distant Past won the Emile Guimet Award from the French National Museum of Asian Arts at the 2004 International Asian Film Festival in Vesoul, France. Based on the best-selling novel of the same name by Le Luu, the film offers an intimate portrait of the lives of young men in a rural Vietnamese village during the 1970s.

"However, it’s not easy for Vietnamese films to get foreign financial assistance," award-winning director Bui Thac Chuyen pointed out.

Trai Tim Be Bong (A Small Heart) by the Viet Nam Feature Films Company beat off 34 films from 21 countries to obtain funds from the US’s Global Film Initiative.

Chuyen is renowned for his interesting scripts and fundraising skills. He managed to get French assistance for several films like Xam (Beggar Music) and Cuoc Xe Dem (A Night Ride).

"I seek funds from foreign organisations for my films as soon as I complete a script," he said.

"I’m looking for aid for Choi Voi (Lonely) which I’ll make soon," he said, adding he needed $300,000 to augment the funds he had from other sources.

His Song Trong So Hai (Living in Fear) won an award for best new talent at the ninth Shanghai International Film Festival in 2006. In the same year, the film won the annual Golden Kite award for best film from the Viet Nam Cinematography Association.

The film is about a former Sai Gon regime soldier who earns a living by clearing unexplored mines to support his family of two wives and five children.

Chuyen said filmmakers had to traverse a long path before being able to obtain assistance from foreign organisations which expected beneficiaries to have been acknowledged by international critics and feted at prestigious film festivals.

However, he said that many Vietnamese films had managed to win the hearts of audiences in Viet Nam and abroad with their innovative themes and content. "This will make it easier for film-makers to get foreign aid," he said.

He and others in the film industry said that a $350,000 programme funded by the US’s Ford Foundation for Vietnamese film-makers over the next two years was truly good news for the industry. — VNS

National film fest seeks commercial entries

saigontoine — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 10:14:00 +0700

Organisers of the up-coming 15th Na-tional Film Festival are encouraging more private studios to bring their movies to the festival, according to Lai Van Sinh, head of the Cinema Department of the Ministry of Culture, Sport and Tourism.

But some big-name private film studios, like Phuoc Sang and Thien Ngan, haven’t yet decided whether to take part in the event to be held on November 21-24 in the northern province of Nam Dinh.

"We know that private studios are not eager to compete at the festival because it isn’t thought to be suitable for commercial movies," said Sinh.

He noted that Thien Ngan’s film Nhung Co Gai Chan Dai (Long-Legged Girls) was the last private studio production to receive an award at the festival, winning second prize at the 2004 festival held in the Central Highlands province of Dac Lac.

This year, the film Dong Mau Anh Hung (The Rebel), produced by Chanh Phuong Studio, is among the few privately produced films slated to compete.

The festival is currently scheduled to show more than 100 films, including 18 features, 11 short films, 22 animated shorts and 54 documentaries, making it the largest festival in the past three years.

Movies from the State-owned studios do not generally perform well at the box office. Many, however, have won acclaim on the film festival circuit, including Song Trong So Hai (Living in Fear); Chuyen Cua Pao (Pao’s Story); Mua Len Trau (Buffalo Boy); Ha Noi, Ha Noi; Gio Thien Duong (Wind in Paradise) and Chop Mat Cung So Phan (Fated Moment).

Living in Fear and Pao’s Story have screened at festivals around the world but found few audiences on domestic screens. Buffalo Boy, directed by overseas Vietnamese Nguyen Vo Nghiem Minh, debuted at the 14th National Film Festival and went on to garner several prizes at international festivals.

Productions by private film studios that have screened at the National Film Festival over the past three years include De Muon (Hired Pregnant); Ao Lua Ha Dong (White Silk Dress); and Hai Trong Mot (Two in One).

This year, National Film Festival organisers have invited actors and directors from Russia, China, South Korea, Laos, Cambodia, and the US to attend the festival. Tadao Sato, chairman of Fukuoka International Film Festival in Japan, has accepted an invitation to attend.

— VNS (18-09-2007)

Oliver Stone visits My Lai massacre site to research Vietnam movie

saigontoine — Mon, 10 Sep 2007 16:24:00 +0700

(c)AFP
Thu Sep 6, 3:01 PM ET - HANOI (AFP)

Oscar-winning US filmmaker Oliver Stone Thursday visited the Vietnamese village of My Lai to research a movie about the infamous massacre there, one of the darkest chapters of the Vietnam War.

Thu Sep 6, 3:01 PM ET HANOI (AFP) - Oscar-winning US filmmaker Oliver Stone Thursday visited the Vietnamese village of My Lai to research a movie about the infamous massacre there, one of the darkest chapters of the Vietnam War.

Stone, who served as an infantryman in the conflict and later won best director Oscars for his war dramas "Platoon" and "Born on the Fourth of July", said he wanted to see the "killing fields" for himself, state media said.

My Lai, located in central Quang Ngai province, is the hamlet where US soldiers went on a bloody rampage and killed up to 504 civilians, many of them unarmed women, children and elderly, on March 16, 1968.

Pham Thanh Cong, director of the My Lai Museum, said local people welcomed the planned movie project, which would serve as a reminder of the "painful and deadly past" and which he said would "help educate future generations."

"If the film is to be shot in My Lai, it would be a symbol of the US admitting their crimes in the war in Vietnam," he told AFP.

Revelations surrounding the massacre, which reached the US public more than a year after the event, sparked international outrage and played a key role in turning American public opinion against the war in Vietnam.

The only US officer to be punished over the massacre was Lieutenant William Calley, who served four and a half months in prison.

Travelling with Stone on the three-day research trip, producer John Kilik said the director hoped to start shooting the movie "Pinkville", the soldiers' nickname for My Lai, by year's end, the Thanh Nien daily said.

Stone, during his Vietnam visit, also wished to call on his old friend Phung Le Ly, author of the memoir "When Heaven And Earth Changed Places," the basis for Stone's film "Heaven And Earth."

"Pinkville" will feature Bruce Willis as William R. Peers, the army general who investigated the My Lai murders, Variety has reported.