Cambodian film producers have asked the Ministry of Culture to take action against the Vimean Tip cinema, claiming its owners charge such a high fee filmmakers can’t afford to show their movies.
The Korean-owned cinema charges producers $10,000 per month to rent, including a $5,000 up-front advance, said Ly Bun Yim, a well-known director who recently became head of the Movie Association.
Even with several showings a day, it is very difficult to make a profit at that rate, another filmmaker said on condition of anonymity. “Many film producers have complained about the rental price,” Ly Bun Yim said. “Charging so much money is having a bad effect on film production.”
Michelle Park, who owns the cinema with her husband, denied that the rental fee was $10,000 but refused to disclose the actual rate. But several filmmakers said they had been charged or quoted $10,000 a month by the Monivong Boulevard theater.
And a copy of one rental contract, signed by Vimean Tip President Ra Y Girl and another film distributor, showed the theater charged and received a $10,000 fee over a 30-day period.
Ly Bun Yim said the price was inappropriate and he planned to complain. He said he is going to ask the ministry’s Cinema Department to set rates for theater rental and ticket prices to prevent price-gouging by cinema owners.
While Vimean Tip has new owners, the building and the name are decades old, a remnant of the golden age of cinema that flourished in Phnom Penh in the 1950s and 1960s.
For many Cambodians, a visit to Vimean Tip is a nostalgic trip down memory lane. But Cambodia’s once vibrant cinematic tradition—even King Norodom Sihanouk was a prominent film maker in the 1960s—was destroyed by the civil war and the Khmer Rouge.
Typically, filmmakers rent theaters to show their own movies, then set the ticket prices themselves. The producer said filmmakers have tried to raise ticket prices to make up costs, but couldn’t stand to see people turned away because they couldn’t afford it.
The producer raised the price to 4,000 riel (about $1), then watched as garment factory workers and students came to the cinema, heard the price and had to leave, the producer said. The producer then lowered the price again, to 2,500 riel (about $0.63).
The filmmaker, who says he spent $40,000 making his movie, said it’s up to the government to keep his movies available to viewers. “The Cinema Department has the power to put pressure on the cinema and make them charge a suitable price,” he said.
Muth Thary, producer of the recent movie “Preah Baht Trasak Pa’aim” (The Sweet Cucumber King), said the Vimean Tip owners raise prices arbitrarily.
Confronted with the $10,000 monthly cost, he took his film elsewhere—to the Royal Sound Cinema, where it costs him just $2,000 per month to show.
“I couldn’t show my movie [at Vimean Tip] because of the price,” he said.
Park said the filmmakers were using the cinema as a scapegoat for the fact that their movies weren’t making any money.
“Customers didn’t like ‘The White Elephant King’—that’s why the director lost money,” she said, referring to another recent movie.
She added that Vimean Tip had high overhead costs, with 32 workers and large electricity requirements.
Moung Sokhan, deputy director of the Cinema Department, also said cinema owners invest a lot of money in their establishments. He said the price of renting theaters might go down once owners have paid off their initial investments.
“I agree that the price is too much, but we don’t have any solutions yet,” Moung Sokhan said.
