With Indians films highly popular in Vietnam, the country wants Bollywood to shoot its films there. In this regard, Vietnam has sought assistance from India to promote the country as a favourable film shooting destination.
“Vietnam had approached us with a proposal that pitched it as a favourable destination for filmmakers in India. Besides, soap operas, Bollywood movies are quite popular there, and we also wish to forge a bond in this segment,” Secretary (East), External Affairs Ministry, Anil Wadhwa said while speaking at the opening of an international seminar on ‘Indo-Vietnam Cultural Relations: Retrospect and Prospect’ organised by Indian Council of Cultural Relations.
“We are moving further in this direction, and a high-level delegation from India visited Vietnam last December at the invitation of the administration, and have found a few locations that could be used for shooting films,” he added. Indian serial Balika Vadhu is shown as the ‘Eight-year-old Bride’ dubbed in Vietnamese.
Cities like Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City and Hoi in Vietnam have been featured in many domestic and international film productions. “Some of the places, our delegation identified during the visit are — Ha long Bay (a World Heritage Site), Ho Chi Minh City and places that were parts of ancient Chinese civilisation in Vietnam, among others,” Wadhwa said. He added that besides cinema and TV production, the countries have potential to “cooperate in areas of Yoga and Ayurveda, apart from strategic cooperation in the defence sector. Yoga is very popular in Vietnam with several Indian instructors earning decent salary in the country.
Calling Mekong-Ganga Cooperation (MGC) one of the key points of its look East Policy, Wadhwa said a high-level meeting is likely in April to revive the initiative that has been lying ‘dormant’ for the last couple of years. “The Mekong-Ganga Cooperation is a very important part of our engagement with our South East Asian neighbours. It is a unique forum which has a tremendous potential to become a powerful catalyst for economic development in the region. And, this year we well give a special push to this initiative,” Wadhwa said.
Ambassador of Vietnam to India Ton Sinh Thanh said his country was willing to partner with India in the cultural sector and mutually promote shooting of films in the two countries. “We would like Indian filmmakers to come to our country and explore the place as a shooting destination. We would also like our filmmakers to visit India and shoot movies there... Because, if culture diplomacy works, rest automatically falls into place,” he said.