The suffering of the Kite Award

“Bread and butter” has always been the pain of the Kite Awards of the Vietnam Cinema Association. Over the course of more than 20 years, the Kite Awards have gone through many ups and downs, changes, and many times “struggled” for funding to organize and award the awards.

The film “Red Rain” is predicted to receive many nominations if it participates in the Kite Awards. Photo: Provided by the producer

On October 23, a representative of the Vietnam Cinema Association shared that this year's Kite Awards ceremony may not have any prize money due to procedural and regulatory issues. The Kite Awards being at risk of not having any prize money has raised questions about the scale of the organization of the award and the enthusiasm of film crews and producers registering to compete in the upcoming awards.

The Kite Award is one of the two rare professional awards for different genres. Vietnamese movies.

In 2002, the Vietnam Cinema Association launched a design and concept contest for an annual award for Vietnamese films in many genres. In 2003, the Vietnam Cinema Association named its award Golden Kite, later known as Kite Award - with the symbolic image of a kite as an expectation for the soaring, breakthrough, and sublimation of Vietnamese films.

Unlike the Golden Lotus Award (of the Cinema Department) awarded periodically at National Film Festivals, the Kite Award is awarded annually to the following categories: Short Films, Animated Films, Documentaries, Scientific Films, theoretical and critical research works... and the two categories that receive the most attention from the public are the awards for Television feature films and Cinema feature films.

Many famous cinema works have been honored at the highest award of the Golden Kite such as: Luoi Troi, Chuyen Cua Pao, Long Thanh Cam Gia Ca, Mui Co Chay, Thien Menh Anh Hung, Than Tuong... Like many awards in other art fields, the Golden Kite Award has always been entangled in countless controversies about the way of awarding and organizing the award... in which, the topic of "bonus money" and organization costs have "haunted" the Golden Kite Award for many years.

The Kite Awards of the Vietnam Cinema Association are organized from the State budget. With the allocated budget, the organizing committee has repeatedly said that it is “limited” and “meager”, so it is very difficult to organize a large-scale and grandiose award ceremony.

In 2014, sharing at the press conference about the new season, the then Chairman of the Vietnam Cinema Association, Mr. Dang Xuan Hai, said: “The State gave us a budget of 600 million VND to organize the award ceremony. The rental fee for the location for the award ceremony, the Vietnam-Soviet Friendship Cultural Palace, alone was nearly 500 million VND.”

At that time, the total prize money awarded to artists in all film genres, all award categories was about 450-500 million VND. In which, each film genre, there were at least nearly a dozen award categories, the most being 2 categories of Television Feature Film and Cinema Feature Film. With Feature films, award categories are divided into many positions such as cinematography, screenwriting, actors, directors, sound...

When the budget is tight, many “hardships” will arise for the organizing committee. For example, when there is a “tie” award, 2 films win “Best Film”, 4 films win the Silver Kite… the prize money will of course have to be divided.

In addition to the costs of the award ceremony and prize money, the organizing committee of the Kite Awards seasons also "struggles" with travel and accommodation costs for film crews from far away provinces and cities.

If the award ceremony takes place in Hanoi , the organizers will have to "run around" to ask for sponsorship to cover airfare, accommodation and meals for the film crew and artists from Ho Chi Minh City.

For many years, the Golden Kite Awards ceremony has been criticized for being... sloppy, lacking the necessary grandeur for a ceremony honoring outstanding films and artists. Meritorious Artist Do Thanh Hai, once the director of the Golden Kite Awards, when compared to the "terribly grandeur" of the Oscars, said: "If you knew the amount of budget we were given to organize an awards night, you would not compare it to the Oscars anymore."

The Kite Awards of the Vietnam Cinema Association have long been considered as an award with the main purpose of “encouraging and cheering” to help artists nurture their passion and motivation to work. But this season, when there is no “encouraging” money, it is difficult to imagine the award ceremony of the Kite season 2026.

Source: https://baoquangninh.vn/noi-kho-cua-giai-canh-dieu-3381632.html