District 8 in HCMC has currently six cultural and sport centers. The district yearly has allocated VND100 million for activities of every unit but it isn’t much, said Head of the district’s Department of Culture and Sports, Tran Thi Thu Trang.
Besides, regulations create many difficulties in calling on private units’ investment. It requires that head of projects and events’ organizers must be State officials, she added.
In fact, 24 culture and arts centers in districts throughout HCMC are completely ineffective in calling on social investment, excluding Thu Duc District, districts of 1, 5, 10.
Many spaces in cultural centers are left empty and have not been effectively exploited yet. The land for rent and disadvantages in opening entertainment facilities, such as bookstore, cinema, coffee shop, or organizing music shows have not attracted investors.
In previous years, HCMC’s stages had the stronger development than Hanoi's. However, the model of socialized theaters has declined in recent years because of the popularity of TV reality shows, an increasing number of cinemas, entertainment venues; the lack of good drama scripts and infrastructures.
These things are artists’ current problems that have not been supported by the State cultural management units, said People’s Artist Hong Van.
The socialization of entertainment programs help discover talented artists but the low artistic quality, according to director Hoang Duan.
In addition, film production companies want to shorten the process of filmmaking to save costs, affecting the movies’ quality as well as focus on meeting the audience’ taste and forget the education and humanity, added scriptwriter Doan Tuan.
Investing in culture is the long-term investment. It may not need a spectacular theater but a stage meeting theatrical performance standards. Beside the investment of public infrastructures, such as bridges, roads, and schools, the authorities should pay attention to the cultural sector and private sources, said former Deputy Director of the Department of Culture and Sports of HCMC, Nguyen The Thanh.
