The story of the Vietnamese women's football team from a cinematic perspective
“This is the story of the Vietnam Women’s Football Team, as a colorful independent character, with an inspiring path, breaking the stereotypes of feminism often seen on the axis of male-female comparison. There is no slogan “Women can do anything men can do” - director Nguyen Thi Tham shared at the premiere of her own documentary about Vietnamese women’s football.
Throughout history, Vietnamese sports have had many events or characters that have been made into documentaries and broadcast on television. However, this is the first time a documentary with a large amount of content and a long duration (78 minutes) has been produced and shown in theaters nationwide. That means all sports fans nationwide have the right to watch the film when they buy tickets to the theater. "If sports have more documentary footage with sharp content, it will certainly create many good effects. We really appreciate this" - sports expert Nguyen Hong Minh shared.
In fact, Vietnamese sports in general or each Federation, Association of sports in particular, do not have much awareness in preserving data to make documentaries for their sports or sports figures. Therefore, very few documentaries are produced. All documentaries are produced for television or press products, not from a cinematic perspective like "Bong da nu Viet Nam, chuyen lan dau ke". The producer of the film "Bong da nu Viet Nam, chuyen lan dau ke" shared that to have the images to make this documentary, collecting data as well as having to spend money to buy television copyright is very costly. Also, cinema is images. However, not many units can preserve the most complete images, so the director spends a lot of time to research and build the sharpest film footage.
However, the first time the sports field has a documentary produced and released in theaters is a bright spot and adds hope that from now on women's football in particular or sports in general will receive more attention.
Sports always need to be widely promoted.
Returning to reality, Mr. Nguyen Hong Minh gave a fairly accurate analysis that: sports are about timing. “A moment will mark an individual or a group in competition. Therefore, all images or recorded footage always have great value,” Mr. Nguyen Hong Minh added. In terms of value, the documentary “Bong da nu Viet Nam, chuyen lan dau ke” somehow touches the emotions of viewers, but the timing makes it less noticeable. If those footages were released in 2023 (after the Vietnam Women’s Football Team participates in the 2023 FIFA World Cup), then clearly, the promotional effect would be extremely effective.
Another event that has received significant attention in Vietnamese sports is the Gold Medal of shooter Hoang Xuan Vinh at the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics (Brazil). This event has been mentioned many times by experts and marked a milestone for Vietnamese sports, and deserves to be made into a documentary. A documentary about that event or character is a very good tool to promote the image of Vietnamese sports that has not been created until now.
Vietnamese sports are still trying to perfect the idea of having a specialized museum to preserve sports memorabilia or images of people who have made many achievements for the country's sports. Each University of Physical Education and Sports in Bac Ninh, Da Nang or Ho Chi Minh City has a traditional room to preserve memorabilia, but that cannot be considered a general museum of the country's sports. There was an idea to build a museum to preserve sports memorabilia, documents, and images to be located at 36 Tran Phu (the current headquarters of the Department of Physical Education and Sports), however, for many reasons, this has not been realized.
Looking at countries around the world, or sports in the region such as Thailand, Singapore, Indonesia... there are museums dedicated to sports. That is where sports people share information and promote the formation and development of their national sports to local people and international tourists.
At the Vietnam Sports Economic Forum 2024, the opinion of the Director of the Hanoi Department of Culture and Sports - Mr. Do Dinh Hong - was approved by many people that in order to develop a good sports economy, three factors must be built including: Targeting which market, what products to provide, and what services to serve it? If sports want to promote their image to create attraction, generate good revenue or attract the attention of managers and people, completing the above steps will achieve the highest efficiency.
