The closing and award ceremony of the 2025 Golden Kite Awards was held on the evening of January 15 at Dai Nam Theater (Hanoi), nearly 1 month later than usual due to many difficulties in the preparation process.
Previously, at the end of October, the Vietnam Cinema Association announced that the Golden Kite Awards were facing the risk of not being able to spend the prize money due to procedural and financial regulations.
According to information at that time, the honored works and individuals still received cups and certificates, but it is likely that there will be no bonus money attached because the "general spending norm" applied to the system of literary and artistic associations has not been removed. The financial agency has not approved the use of budget to spend on the award categories of central specialized associations, including the Golden Kite Award.
However, at the award ceremony held on the evening of January 15 in Hanoi, Mr. Nguyen Van Tan - Vice Chairman of the Vietnam Cinema Association - said that the above-mentioned problems are only temporary. The Association has proactively worked with relevant agencies to promptly remove difficulties, ensuring that the 2025 Golden Kite Awards are fully organized, thereby worthily honoring the contributions and creativity of film artists.
Mr. Tan further revealed: "The prize money for each Culture and Arts Association in a year of awarding should usually be around less than 800 million VND, including all organizational costs. With the Cinema Association, we usually spend about two-thirds of that money as prize money for the award categories. The rest is spent on other expenses, such as costs for inviting the judges to evaluate films, print, and make award cups...".
According to Mr. Tan, the bonus amount for Canh Dieu 2025 is about 400 million VND for all categories.
The rest, the Organizing Committee must spend other expenses, including air tickets, travel expenses, fees... for the Judging Panel and many other organizational expenses.
Currently, each Golden Kite or Silver Kite Cup costs about 3 million VND. With about 60 prize categories, the total cost is not small," Mr. Tan said.
The Vice Chairman of the Vietnam Cinema Association said that the organization of the Golden Kite Awards announcement and awarding event alone is completely not funded from the budget and uses socialized sources (sponsored money from outside businesses and organizations).
In previous years, when organizing in Nha Trang, the Association received support from the People's Committee of Khanh Hoa province and the coordination of businesses. In three years, the scale of organizing the Golden Kite Award Ceremony has become increasingly large.
This year, despite facing many difficulties, the Vietnam Cinema Association still decided to organize an event in Hanoi in an appropriate time, trying to do our best within our capabilities to honor the artistic creative labor of members. What about next year, we will continue to calculate," Mr. Tan shared.
Mr. Tan affirmed that the construction of the cultural industry, in which cinema is a spearhead economic sector, has been mentioned in the Prime Minister's Decision since 2016. After that, in the Party's Directives and Resolutions on the fields of culture, literature, and art, this content has been emphasized. However, in reality, there are still many difficulties.
Mr. Tan believes that to develop the film industry, many resources are needed, including budget resources from the State, from the people, and especially the potential of society. Effective mobilization of socialized resources is an important factor, helping the activities of associations to take place smoothly and develop sustainably.
The 2025 Golden Kite Awards gathered 164 entries, including 15 feature films, 13 television series with 569 episodes, 24 animated films, 10 science films, 72 documentaries and 30 short films.
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