Rare vietnam film archives now available
HANOI - Film footage
never seen before from Hanoi's
secret archives of the wars in
Vietnam against the United States
and France will be commercially
available next week for the first time,
a German film executive said
Tuesday.
Alexander van Dulmen, managing
director of Berlin-based Progress
Film-Verleih GmbH, told Reuters
that a specially prepared reel would
highlight some of the remarkable film
that had been shot between 1945
and 1975.
Progress Film had signed a deal in
January with the official Vietnam Film
Institute for exclusive worldwide
marketing rights to all Vietnam's
official film archives.
Progress Film would offer direct
access to the archives at MIP TV
'99, the International Television
Program Market due in Cannes,
France from April 12-17, van
Dulmen said.
``There are some very impressive
films about the bombing in Hanoi,
really very touching pictures,'' van
Dulmen said.
He added that over the past three
months Progress had screened some
47 miles of film, but had scarcely
dented the huge stocks held in
communist-ruled Vietnam.
``As long as the war continued the
more footage there is,'' van Dulmen
said. ``From 1964-65 there is only a
little, but from 1970-75 there is a
huge amount.''
Highlights included tens of thousands
of people carrying war supplies on
foot down the Ho Chi Minh trail,
footage of U.S. prisoners of war,
and everything on how small bands
of poorly equipped Viet Cong
guerrillas plotted and executed
attacks against U.S. troops.
``The brutality of the war between
1973 and 1975 after the American
troops were withdrawn seems in a
way much higher than before,'' van
Dulmen said.
``There is film of the arrest of one
American pilot. It is the only shot
we've seen anywhere of an American
getting hit by some Vietnamese
people,'' he added.
Progress was not yet able to offer
comprehensive catalogs of available
footage or to sell film clip by clip, van
Dulmen said.
``We can offer access and are
seeking one big customer to whom
we can offer worldwide first use
rights excluding German territories,''
van Dulmen said.
``The ideal customer would be if
someone was interested in producing
a detailed documentary on the
Vietnam War based on a new view,''
he added.
On May 8 in Berlin, Progress will
organize a symposium entitled ``New
perspectives on the Vietnam War''
which will feature rare war footage
and offer a chance for discussion
among academics, journalists and
officials from both sides.
Following World War II, Vietnam
fought major wars against France,
which was struggling to regain
control of its former colony, and then
against the United States with the
rival government it backed in the
former South Vietnam.
Reuters - April 6, 1999.
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