At the beginning of August, Standing Vice Chairman of the provincial People’s Committee Tran Song Tung received Indian film director Rahul Sudesh Bali who is a General Director of Innovations India.
The working session was part of the tourism promotion programme between Vietnam and India in the fields of cinema, tourism, and cultural exchange.
Cinema cooperation with India to promote Ninh Binh’s image
At the working session, Rahul said that continuing the success of the film “Love in Vietnam” - the first cinematic co-production between Vietnam and India, premiered in the Cannes Festival 2024 and the third Da Nang Asian Film Festival (DANAFF 2025), Innovations India is planning to produce a film project whose filming locations will be shot entirely in Ninh Binh.
Middle-class people in India tend to travel to filming locations. With charateristics of overlapping mountain ranges, fantastic caves and unique heritages, Ninh Binh owns great potential to become an attractive destination for not only tourists but also international film makers.
Rahul also shared his plan to film festivals in Ninh Binh and choose the province as the host of the opening ceremony of Namaste Vietnam 2025 - a series of activities to connect Vietnam and India artists, film directors and enterprises.
After hearing the proposals, Tung highly evaluated Rahul’s ideals in advertisingNinh Binh’s image to international markets, especially the Indian market.
Ninh Binh has been making concerted efforts to upgrade tourism infrastructure, including projects to build a five-star hotel and an international airport to welcome the wave of international tourists in the future, Tung added.
Golden chance to affirm Ninh Binh’s position on the world tourism map
Also on August 1 morning, Tung had a working session with a delegation from the Photographic Society of America (PSA) led by its Vice President Agatha Anne Bunanta.
The meeting aimed to discuss some issues related to the selection of Ninh Binh as a location to host the 4th PSA Photo Gathering in April 2026.
Agatha shared that the PSA Photo Gathering is an important annual event, which has been successfully organised in India, Indonesia and Sri Lanka.
It is expected that in Ninh Binh, the event will last for three days (April 24-26, 2026), gathering about 150-200 international photographers from many countries, creating a space for artistic creation and promoting the image of Vietnamese culture and nature.
Regarding this proposal, Tung expressed his agreement and emphasised that after merging administrative units, Ninh Binh owns a natural area of over 3,942 km2, more than 5,000 historical relics, including 283 national relics and eightspecial national relics. Typical examples include the Hoa Lu Ancient Capital relic complex, and Trang An - Tam Coc - Bich Dong landscape.
With nearly 90 km of coastline, a unique system of ancient churches and theMother Goddess worship recognised by UNESCO as an intangible cultural heritage, Ninh Binh is increasingly affirming its position as a "green pearl" of the North’s tourism.
Hosting a large-scale international photography event will be a golden opportunity for Ninh Binh's image to spread even more strongly to international friends, he said.
Tung pledged to direct departments and sectors to closely coordinate and create the most favourable conditions for the event to take place successfully, contributing to realising the aspiration of building Ninh Binh into a Millennium Heritage City - a centrally-run city in the near future./.