Artist Quang Dat.

The project was kicked off on March 5, 2009 on 130sq.m of land, donated by artist Nguyen Duc Dat, at a cost of VND300 million ($17,500) raised from artists, movie fans and HCM City-based ART Company.

On November 25, 2008, Director of the UNESCO-Multimedia Movie Centre Le Huu Phuoc appointed Nguyen Duc Dat as the chairman of the museum.

The museum preserves keepsakes of Vietnamese directors and actors collected by Nguyen Duc Dat for over two decades. Among them are some scripts of late director Hong Sen, six old projectors which were used by mobile film groups to serve people in remote and mountainous areas, eight cameras used by artists-soldiers during the Vietnam War and a camera owned by late director Khuong Me.

Other objects include 14 of photographer Nguyen Danh’s cameras, old radios, phonographs, 50 old books on movies published in France, medals of late senior director Nguyen The Doan and Khuong Me.

Quang Dat’s collection

Nguyen Duc Dat, 51, also owns unique objects, including a Lambretta Special motorbike with 447 signatures, including that of President Nguyen Minh Triet, a wood pen with the signatures of 99 journalists, three old cameras with 99 signatures of cameramen; 99 shoes of artists which symbolise the “footsteps of arts”; 99 signatures of martial arts instructors on a tunic; 99 knives of 99 regions; and nine helmets with 600 signatures of traffic police officers from throughout the country. This motorbike and the collection of 99 are recognised as Vietnamese records.

Dat’s collection also has five guitars – gifts from famous composers and singers, namely Trinh Cong Son, Chau Ky, Nguyen Cuong, Ngoc Son and Che Linh.

VietNamNet/TP