Thanh Giong cinema, which specialises in screening cartoons and is run by the Vietnam Cartoon Ltd Company, is equipped with modern digital technology standards and is capable of seating 150 viewers.
The cinema will offer free screenings to audiences on Saturdays and Sundays in two weeks. After that, tickets on Saturdays and Sundays will be sold at a reduced price, while weekday shows will be reserved for schools with wholesale contracts.
According to Dang Vu Thao, chairman of the company's executive board, the company has produced hundreds of animated films in the past few years, only 50 of which have been released on DVD. The rest have not yet been screened.
"We [the animated film makers] sometimes feel very sad as most of our films cannot reach children," he told The Thao&Van Hoa (Sports&Culture newspaper). "Television stations will not agree to broadcast animated films, as they don’t bring in much profit.
"For example, in order to broadcast a foreign animated film, TV stations have to buy copyright and be responsible for the copyright. In the meantime, an enterprise that wants to advertise a product would be willing to buy the copyright of a cartoon to broadcast on a TV channel and order the station to insert the advertisement in the middle of the cartoon.
"So, in that way, the TV stations don't have to buy copyrights and still have profit from advertisements."
Thao said the company had organised free screenings for children in remote and mountainous regions and given free DVDs to local TV stations.
The company will also screen foreign cartoons and even movies at the newly finished cinema.
