New direction for short films after the success of "Wooden Fish"

The short film "Wooden Fish" by director Nguyen Pham Thanh Dat was released in theaters on July 15, and was shown for a week until July 21, earning more than 4.4 billion VND.

With a duration of 30 minutes and a ticket price of only 39,000 VND, "Wooden Fish" surprised everyone and achieved sales. At one point, the film even led in ticket sales of the day with more than 50,000 tickets. The work is the graduation thesis of director Nguyen Pham Thanh Dat at the Hanoi Academy of Theatre and Cinema, and won the 2024 Golden Kite Award for the category "Outstanding Short Film".

Short film “Wooden Fish”. (Photo provided by the producer)

The film tells the story of Cuong - a coastal boy who is passionate about music but is discouraged by his father. Cuong gives up his passion and pursues a career at sea to take care of his family. Gradually, the seafaring profession becomes difficult due to the depletion of fish and shrimp, making Cuong hesitate whether to give up everything to pursue his passion or keep the boat that he and his friends use to make a living.

The film was filmed in the coastal area of Quynh Luu ( Nghe An ), with a cast of actors: Nguyen Quoc Hung, Nguyen Minh Ha, Lanh Thanh... The work has created good word of mouth on social networks, with many mixed opinions but more praise than criticism.

An important factor that helped the film gain attention and much discussion was the previous success of the theme song "Miracle" - the debut music product of the band MAYDAYs, composed and performed by the film's main actor Nguyen Quoc Hung.

The music video for "Miracle" was uploaded to YouTube in February and has so far garnered over 41 million views and many positive comments. The initial success of the soundtrack was the motivation for Nguyen Pham Thanh Dat to bring "Wooden Fish" to theaters. The positive signals from the revenue of a pioneering short film shown commercially on the big screen open up a new direction for Vietnamese short films.

For a long time, Vietnamese short films have been produced in large numbers, but they are not easy to be shown commercially in theaters due to many objective factors. The films are mainly shown for free at short film festivals, awards, related exchange programs or short film weeks...

"Wooden Fish" with only 1 week of theatrical release shows that short films can also be shown commercially and reap better revenue than just being produced to compete at film festivals or introduce the filmmaker's own abilities.

Source: https://baoquangninh.vn/huong-moi-cho-phim-ngan-sau-thanh-cong-cua-dan-ca-go-3369150.html