At night, the orange light in the room is dim and ambiguous.
Xiao Zhang is wearing a silk, flesh-colored dress with a deep V. Her long, slightly messy, wavy hair is spread over her shoulders. Her delicately raised eyebrows and gaudy rose-pink lipstick make her face look like hibiscus. The naturally sculpted little face looks more charming.
She was laughing heartily while holding a red wine glass in her hand, the bright red wine swaying in the glass. Her smile was exaggerated, and she even looked a little bit cheesy, but she attracted Li Tang's attention like a magnet.
The scene turned, and Xiao Zhang transformed into a heroic knight, galloping on a horse. His high ponytail was swaying rhythmically with the ups and downs, and a few strands of hair were stuck to his forehead that was wet with sweat.
Her riding skills are superb and her endurance is astonishing. In critical moments, her sharp gaze adds a sense of resoluteness to her frail appearance.
Li Tang was intoxicated by her variety, because she made him feel like Fan Xiaopang, Teacher Jiang, and his ex-girlfriend.
Just when Li Tang was in a state of elation, he suddenly shivered, as if he had fallen from a high altitude. He suddenly felt a softness in his bones and muscles, and at the same time he woke up from his sleep.
He opened the quilt and looked down, speechless and smiling bitterly.
More than a month has passed since I last parted with Xiaopang in Shanghai. Alas, it has been too long!
He raised his eyes and looked at the window. He only pulled a layer of window screen and there was already light outside. He sat on the bed and calmed down for a while, then slowly got up and walked into the bathroom.
In the early morning, the Cannes Croisette, which was bustling last night, was empty. Occasionally, I saw a few people who got up early for a morning jog or walked their dogs. Due to the dual impact of the epidemic and the war in Iraq, there are far fewer backpacker tents on the beach than last year.
Li Tang jogged rhythmically along the coastal avenue. He basically does aerobic running every morning now, which can not only exercise his endurance ability, but also achieve the effect of body shaping by burning body fat calories.
After running around for a while, he felt much more relaxed. When he returned to the hotel, he met Zhang Ziyi's agent and assistant at the elevator entrance, as well as two men and a woman dressed in fashionable clothes, holding large and small bags in their hands. .
"Good morning, Teacher Li!"
Classmate Xiao Zhang’s agent and assistant were already familiar with Li Tang.
"Morning you guys!"
Li Tang glanced at the two strangers. He didn't know each other, but the other party obviously recognized him and greeted him politely: "Good morning, Mr. Li!"
"Good morning, you two are..."
The agent next to me quickly helped introduce him.
It turns out that these two are the stylists and makeup artists that classmate Xiao Zhang specially invited from Lijiapo this time.
After hearing this, Li Tang couldn't help but said in surprise: "So early?"
The stylist with a goatee but a somewhat effeminate attitude said: "We have a few sets here that we need to discuss with Miss Zhang first. If Miss Zhang has other requirements, it will take time to prepare. …”
This Balabala talked for a long time until they got into the elevator and went upstairs together. When they were about to reach the room, they finally said: "Mr. Li, I hope we can cooperate in the future."
After speaking, he even handed over his business card.
After working on it for a long time, it turned out that this was selling business to myself.
"Oh, thank you!"
Li Tang took the business card and nodded towards him politely.
Anyway, my brother is now quite famous in Southeast Asia, and he is probably not far away from becoming famous in parts of East Asia, Southeast Asia and South Asia.
In the morning, I made an appointment with people from my company to have breakfast together. It was considered a meeting in Cannes.
Nine o'clock was too early for Cannes. Many shops and restaurants were not open yet, so they had to gather at the hotel restaurant where Zeng Jia and the others were staying.
This is a four-star hotel, about five or six hundred meters away from the Barriere Hotel where Li Tang lives, and it is also in the center of Cannes.
The breakfast buffet price of thirty-five euros per person is quite friendly during the film festival, after all, this is Cannes, and it only happens once a year.
It is said that the French are good at cooking, but the French breakfast is far less rich than the Italians, and they are mainly sweet, such as French bread, croissants, chocolate bread, biscuits, and so on. Spread jam, butter, and honey on top.
Occasionally, there will be some salty items such as small sausages, small potatoes, ham, and bacon. French people basically don’t choose these. Only foreigners choose these.
Li Tang is from Shanghai and is more tolerant of sweet tastes. It tastes good with a cup of black coffee, but it is bitter for several other northerners. For example, Zeng Jia and Diao Yinan are both from Xi'an, Ning Hao is from Shanxi, Du Hua is from Shandong, and Zhao Luoyao is a native of the capital.
They almost swept away the few small sausages, hams, bacon and the like that had just been put out in the restaurant.
In fact, their trip was relatively easy, because the overseas rights of the two films "Uniform" and "Incense" had been packaged and acquired by MK2 at a price of 600,000 euros, and they did not use the previous two agency cooperation methods.
Since it is cooperation, there are always various methods, including agency and buyout. In fact, agency is also risky for producers. If the box office is not satisfactory, they may not even be able to recover the capital.
The advantage of a buyout is that you have peace of mind. The investment in "Uniform" and "Incense" is very small. To use a popular saying, China has a large number of industrial workers and cheap labor, and Chinese manufacturing wins with low prices.
For example, to make the same film "Incense", Ning Hao would only need to spend 300,000 RMB to organize his own team. However, if he organized a European team to achieve the same effect, the production cost would be even 300,000 RMB.
A package of 600,000 euros was used to buy out the global copyrights of two films excluding mainland China, Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan. For MK2, it was a purchase of two excellent art films at a price almost below cost.
For Shengtang Film and Television, the price of 600,000 euros is enough to make them a lot of money, because the total production cost of the two films is still only 800,000 yuan. Moreover, the cost of the magnetic transfer of "Incense" was also borne by MK2.
Such cooperation is a win-win situation for both parties, which is why MK2 worked so hard this time to have these two films shortlisted for the Un Certain Regard category.
Now that they have bought out, the more attention the two movies receive and the more they sell, the more they will naturally earn.
Both Diao Yinan and Ning Hao knew this very well, and they would not care about their remuneration. It seemed that their works had made Shengtang Film and Television a lot of money. On the contrary, they are very grateful to the company, because this is the resource, the irreplaceable resource advantage that Shengtang Film and Television has.
Not to mention how difficult it is to get investment for making a movie these days, can even if you get investment, can you be nominated for Cannes?
Of course, Li Tang was not a stingy person. As soon as the money arrived, he immediately sealed each of them a big red envelope worth 200,000 yuan. Two hundred thousand is enough for the down payment of a house next to the Third Ring Road.
After breakfast, we went to the film market as planned.
Compared with the deserted trading market in Venice, Cannes is much more lively. As the world's largest film trading market, more than half of the world's international distribution companies set up booths here during the annual film festival, and more than 2,000 films are traded here every year. This is also the main reason why Cannes can become the leader of the three major European film festivals.
Although the film festival hasn't started yet, the film market is already bustling with activity. However, due to the outbreak of the Iraq War, Ben Ladeng threatened to cause trouble at this film festival, so the security of the Film Palace this year is extremely strict. Everyone entering must go through bag opening inspection and metal detector.
The Cannes Film Market occupies two floors of the Palace of Cinema, covering an area of 7,000 square meters. In addition, the organizer also provided nearly 30 screening rooms for film previews.
As soon as I entered the market, I saw the stall of Wanwan Movies set up at the entrance. However, this stall was very small, and the staff were only two or three kittens. The decoration was also very ordinary. The only eye-catching thing was that there was a pair of Chinese, English, and French posters hanging on the stall. The slogan written in two languages - "Wanwan Movies are infinitely charming". Such a slogan is applicable everywhere, but it seems lacking in confidence when it is hung in such a shabby stall.
In recent years, with the massive invasion of Hollywood films, Wanwan Films has basically no local market, and only a few well-known art film directors are struggling to support the overseas market.
Li Tang saw China Film Group's name on the exhibitor list provided by the organizer. It was also the only exhibitor from the mainland. Unfortunately, everyone looked around and couldn't see China Film's booth.
However, there are two booths for Hong Kong movies that are quite eye-catching. A Hong Kong distribution company called "Network Asia" is an independent exhibitor. The movie poster of "McDull Story" is prominently posted on the booth. When Li Tang and others stopped to watch, the staff obviously recognized Li Tang in the crowd and enthusiastically came over to say hello and hand over their business cards.
Li Tang chatted with him for a few words and heard from the staff member that Hong Kong movies were not the focus of their promotion. They would focus on promoting Thai movies this year.
He also emphasized that Chen Guo's films are promoted here every year, and introduced: "This year we will introduce "People's Public Toilet" here. Chen Guo's film is considered good among the Hong Kong films we recommend every year. He is well-known in Europe. We already have a pretty solid audience, so sales are very stable.”
Li Tang just wanted to listen to this. Chen Guo's "People's Public Toilet" had already debuted at last year's Venice Film Festival. If it sold well, it wouldn't be brought here again this year. .
However, the staff member finally said frankly: "Due to the economic downturn in recent years, our sales here have been showing a downward trend for several years."
This sentence sounds quite pertinent, but it is not the economic downturn but the overall decline of Hong Kong movies a few years ago.
Not far from the "Network Asia" booth are the booths with the brands of the Hong Kong Trade Development Council and the Hong Kong International Film and Television Council. Although this year's "Hong Kong Night" has been suspended for a year due to the epidemic, the Hong Kong film booth is one of the largest in the entire trading market. It's just that their location doesn't seem to be ideal. Opposite is a very exquisitely decorated Italian film booth, and next to it is a Spanish film booth with a booth area similar to theirs. Under the attack of these two traditional film powerhouses, the deteriorating Hong Kong films are probably in trouble.
In the noisy film market, the most eye-catching ones are actually the Korean booths, because not only are their booths very exquisitely decorated, but they are also very clean, with all the glass polished and their promotional materials neatly displayed. together. The staff in the booth spread out their computers and worked inside, and a few beautiful ladies were specially arranged outside to bow to everyone and hand out leaflets.
Although no Korean film was shortlisted for the main competition this time, their work attitude is still worthy of recognition. Once upon a time, Korean films were just students of Hong Kong films. In just a few years, they have been catching up.
More than ten years later, during Li Tang's previous life, "Insects" not only won the Palme d'Or at Cannes, but also won awards including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay, and Best Film. Four Oscars, including the Foreign Language Film Award.
And after about this time in 2015, among the huge Chinese community in the United States, everyone gradually became more interested in watching Korean movies. As for Chinese-language movies, in addition to the ones like "The Wandering Earth" that are praised by others, I'm really sorry for the rest.
Just like the rise of Japanese football in Asia, the rise of Korean movies has a lot to do with the serious and persistent work attitude of their practitioners and the creative environment.
For example, at this film festival, Korean films were not shortlisted for the main competition unit, and were not even shortlisted for the parallel Un Certain Regard competition unit. But when talking about their movies, the staff at the booth were still full of pride and said with great confidence: "We have high expectations for this year's film market and believe the results will be good."
So we are afraid of comparison in everything. What is our attitude in comparison?
This year's Cannes has two films by mainland filmmakers shortlisted for the main competition and two films shortlisted for the Un Certain Regard category. It stands to reason that these are definitely the highlight moments for Chinese films.
But as for us, some things are really hard to say and can only be described in a few words.
However, when everyone walked around the film market, they found that they did not see the booth of the Hollywood film producers. Everyone felt quite surprised.
It happened that Li Tangzi caught a staff member of the organizer at the scene and asked about it.
The handsome French guy spoke with a sense of humor. He pointed in the direction of the exit of the Cinema Palace and said, "Advertising space outside is very expensive. No other company except Hollywood can afford it."
The implication is that all the hard work in Hollywood movies is done off-set.
This is indeed the case. They saw it with their own eyes when they came over. There were large billboards every ten meters along the promenade that winds along the coastline outside the Film Palace. But this time, almost all of them were posted on the big billboards. They are all Hollywood movies.
For example, Jim Carrey's new film "Bruce Alone", old cowboy Clint Eastwood's "Mystic River", Nicole Kidman's "Dogville" and so on.
Of course, the most eye-catching one with the largest number of billboards is the long-awaited Hollywood blockbuster "The Matrix 2", which will be premiered at this film festival.
But then the French guy smiled and said: "Let's wait and see, the film festival will start tonight. This is the Cannes Film Festival!"
Very French indeed.
Among the many old American vassals in Europe, only the French would jump out and cause trouble from time to time, giving American dad a headache.
(End of chapter)
