Huayu: Director started with art films

After waiting backstage for a while, a staff member came and arranged for Li Yishu, the chairman of the jury, to go on stage.

A few minutes later.

Li Yishu strode from the backstage to the front stage.

When he appeared, the audience burst into thunderous applause!
Li Yishu raised her hand and waved to the nearly 1,000 Chinese and foreign filmmakers, media and film critics in the audience with a smile.

When he stood beside the podium, he moved the microphone and put the manuscript away. Then he smiled and said in English: "Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the opening ceremony of the Shanghai International Film Festival!"

"Clap clap-"

There was thunderous applause again.

Li Yishu was not in a hurry. She waited for them to applaud for a while before signaling for silence with both hands. She said in Chinese: "Thank you all for your enthusiasm. Today is the opening day of the 2nd Shanghai International Film Festival. I am honored to be invited to serve as the chairman of the jury this year. I am also very happy to have hundreds of filmmakers from China and abroad..."

Balabala said a lot of things, all of which were official statements.

Today's occasion had to be unofficial. Even if Li Yishu wanted to say something else, the leaders in the audience were all watching her. Not only the local leaders, but also the leaders from the Radio, Film and Television and Propaganda Departments.

"1991 years!"

Li Yishu looked at the huge crowd of people in the audience and said with a smile: "A junior student shot his first independent film with great enthusiasm and successfully won his first trophy in life. Today, four years later, he is standing here, on the stage!"

"That lucky guy is me!"

Those who could understand Chinese at the scene burst into laughter, while the foreign filmmakers who did not understand Chinese looked at the young people on the stage with smiles on their faces as they listened to the translator beside them.

Who would have thought that this young man, who is less than 30 years old, not only won the Grand Slam of gold awards at the four major film festivals, but has now become the chairman of the jury of an international A-class film festival!

Li Yishu clenched her fists and made the final summary: "There are many new directors here today. I only have one thing to say to you, that is, follow your dreams and live up to your youth!"

There was a crash.

There was thunderous applause again.

Li Yishu came to the side of the podium, bent down and bowed, then stepped back. The host then walked onto the stage, first greeted Li Yishu respectfully, and then announced the official start of the opening ceremony.

Then a staff member came on stage and removed the podium. Then a group of young actors ran out from backstage and began to perform.

After Li Yishu came down from the stage, she did not go to the front desk, but instead went to find Vice Chairman Sun Daolin.

Li Yishu asked, "Mr. Sun, you don't need me for the next event, right?"

"How can we not need you?" Sun Daolin said with a smile, "You are the chairman of the jury this year. There are several movie premieres tomorrow, and you will be needed to attend the event."

"Is it difficult for me to go?" Li Yishu frowned and said, "After all, I am the chairman of the jury. I can either not attend the movie premiere or attend all of them. But I don't have that much time now. I have a lot of things to do these days."

"Is it something about the crew?" Sun Daolin asked in confusion, "Isn't there Old Xie watching over there?"

Li Yishu laughed and said, "Director Xie is focusing on one crew, but our production of Red Cliff of the Three Kingdoms is divided into three crews!"

Li Yishu and Xie Jin are in one group, Li Jun and Wang Fulin are in one group, and Shen Haofang and Yang Guangyuan are in one group.

The former was filming the naval scenes, Li Jun and Wang Fulin were preparing the cavalry scenes in Hengdian, and Shen Haofang and Yang Guangyuan were studying the military formations.

At this point, Li Yishu added, "And it's not just about the crew. I'm the chief judge of the Miss Asia beauty pageant finals. The finals will be held tomorrow, and I have to go and participate."

"That's it..."

Sun Daolin thought for a moment and nodded, "Okay then. If you have something to do, just go ahead and I'll keep an eye on it for the next few days. The closing ceremony will be in a few days, and as the chairman of the jury, you shouldn't have too much contact with the participating directors."

"Thank you, Mr. Sun."

Li Yishu smiled and made up her mind that she would never be the chairman of the jury again.

Not only is it a waste of time, but you also have no power at all!

But there are pros and cons. The good thing is that although he is just a figurehead, he is the focus of external publicity, which can further improve his reputation.

After chatting with Sun Daolin for a few more sentences, Li Yishu turned around and said goodbye. Just as he was about to go to the front desk, the cell phone in his pocket suddenly rang. After answering it, he found that it was Gong Li calling.

Li Yishu was surprised and asked, "You came to Shanghai?"

"Yes, I just arrived in Shanghai!"

Gong Li on the other end of the phone said with a smile: "I just saw on TV that the Shanghai Film Festival has just opened, so I thought of calling you. I didn't expect that the call actually went through."

"If you were ten minutes earlier, I'm afraid you wouldn't be able to get through."

"why?"

“Because I was speaking on stage at that time!”

"Yes, yes, Chairman Li is such a busy man. How can I have the nerve to disturb Chairman Li from attending such a grand opening ceremony!"

Gong Li on the other end of the phone said sarcastically, "Alright, alright, I won't bother Chairman Li anymore, that's it!"

Li Yishu didn't know whether to laugh or cry after hearing this, and said, "Okay, Sister Gong Li, I'm done with this. Where are you? I'll come find you. I just happen to have something to tell you."

Gong Li said: "Then come on, I'm at the Huating Hotel."

"Okay, wait for me there."

Li Yishu hung up the phone and immediately left Shanghai Film Studio from the backstage.

After half an hour.

Hua Ting Hotel.

In the suite that Gong Li had booked, Li Yishu asked while drinking tea, "Has the filming of "The Empress Dowager of Liao" been completed?"

"Yes, we finished filming yesterday." Gong Li nodded and sighed, "I'd better shoot fewer costume films in the future. I'm almost dying of heat from filming these few months!"

Li Yishu laughed and said, "Haha, haven't you always said that you wanted to play a domineering empress? Now there is only one Xiao Yanyan, and in the future there will be Lu Zhi and Wu Zetian waiting for you to play."

"Forget it. I have no interest at all now." Gong Li shook her head. "Let me take a break for half a year. The filming of "Empress Dowager of Liao" this year really drained all my energy."

"Then take a rest. How is the cultural center going now?"

"It's pretty good. Before coming to Shanghai, I called the person in charge there. Now there are nearly a thousand tourists visiting every day, and there are even more people during holidays."

"That's not bad. How is the business going over there?"

"It's fairly stable. Several places have been opened. The city has plans to make our cultural center into a Jinan-style one..."

The two chatted casually, and suddenly Gong Li asked: "By the way, you just told me on the phone that you had something to talk to me about. What is it?"

Li Yishu asked, "Are you free to go to Hong Kong tomorrow?" Gong Li asked in surprise, "Why go to Hong Kong?"

"Go see Miss Asia."

"The pageant isn't over yet? Didn't it end at the end of September?"

"It's not over yet."

Li Yishu shook her head: "The original plan was to hold the finals on September 9th, but due to some unexpected circumstances, the Miss Asia finals were postponed to October 18th, which is tomorrow."

"No way?" Gong Li has been filming in the Northeast for some time, and she has no interest in beauty pageants, so she didn't pay much attention to it. She didn't expect it to be over yet.

Li Yishu said helplessly: "It's mainly because there are too many people who signed up."

The original plan for the Miss Asia beauty pageant was to gather champions from various countries in Hong Kong on September 9, followed by ten days of training and televised auditions, with the finals set to be held in mid-September.

It will be over around the beginning of October, but there are too many people participating in the auditions from various countries, especially some Southeast Asian countries, so many girls don’t have much chance.

Now that there is finally an opportunity to stand out and become a celebrity, naturally everyone wants to sign up for the competition.

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Ugly, beautiful, fat, thin, all signed up.

This caused a great delay in the beauty pageant auditions. Apart from other things, more than 100,000 people signed up from the mainland alone, most of whom were from coastal areas, as well as big cities such as Yanjing, Shanghai, and Shenzhen.

It is impossible to screen so many people in a short period of time.

Originally, Huo Wenxi had a very tough attitude. After the audition deadline had passed, no matter how many contestants were left in the auditions, no further selection would be allowed.

But before that, she had delegated the right to audition to TV stations in various regions and countries. In order to make money, these TV stations saw the ratings soaring and the advertising fees increasing day by day, so it was naturally impossible for them to agree.

There was no other way, so Huo Wenxi finally had to postpone the audition after the deadline had passed, but she also set a deadline with these TV stations.

If the auditions continue, there is no end in sight. The audiences will get tired of watching them. And if this continues, will there be a Miss Asia election next year?

After hearing this, those money-hungry TV stations reluctantly agreed to Huo Wenxi's conditions.

It was not until early September that the Miss Asia beauty pageant auditions came to an end.

From mid-September to the end of the month, a full half month, the champions from various countries and regions were selected.

On October 10, the contestants arrived in Hong Kong for a ten-day training.

After two weeks of TV semi-finals, 16 beauties have been selected to enter the week-long finals. Tomorrow, Sunday, is the last day of the finals.

16 beauties were selected from more than countries and over one million people to compete for the final eight, four, and the first, second and third place.

After listening to Li Yishu's words, Gong Li smiled and said, "Okay, I'll go with you tomorrow. I also want to see how beautiful the beauties selected from so many countries and so many people are."

Li Yishu smiled and said that those selected must be all beauties.

As far as he knew, there were many beauties who became famous in the future.

Gong Li smiled and said, "Why aren't you talking? Are there so many beauties here?"

"No matter how many beauties there are, I only like Sister Gong Li." Li Yishu said with a smile: "There are three thousand rivers, and I only take one."

"Really just one scoop?" Gong Li said playfully, "Yu Feihong, Jiang Qinqin..."

"Cough cough!!"

Li Yishu coughed twice, interrupted Gong Li's words, and changed the subject: "By the way, Sister Gong Li, you are taking a break this year, do you have any schedule next year?"

Gong Li found it funny, but she didn't continue to pester him. Instead, she nodded and said, "I have a schedule for now. Do you have a movie to shoot?"

"It's not me, it's Zhao Fei. He was supposed to shoot a movie this year, but I dragged him over to shoot Red Cliff of the Three Kingdoms." Li Yishu said, "Before I came to the film festival, he told me that he wanted you to play the female lead, and asked me to ask if you were free."

“What is he going to shoot?”

"Do you know a woman who combs her hair?"

"A woman who combs her hair?"

Gong Li raised her eyebrows. "I've heard that in the old society, in coastal areas, some poor girls chose not to get married and worked as servants for their whole lives?"

"That's about what I mean, but the situation is a little more complicated." Li Yishu thought about some of the things that Huang Ma had told him, and then he introduced the past of this special group of women who had been combed by their hair.

Speaking of which, it was all thanks to Li Yishu that Zhao Fei wanted to film the theme of a spinster.

When filming "Red Cliff", Zhao Fei was thinking of finding the great screenwriter Li Yishu to provide some creative ideas or help him write a script.

For Li Yishu, writing a script for an art film was definitely a piece of cake. He originally wanted to write the script for the later film "Hidden in the Dust" and give it to Zhao Fei to shoot.

After all, this is still popular these days.

However, when communicating with Zhao Fei, Li Yishu mentioned Huang Ma, a spinster, which immediately attracted Zhao Fei's attention and curiosity.

Zhao Fei was from Shaanxi and didn't know much about the history of the coastal areas, so when he suddenly heard the story about the self-combed women, he became very interested.

After asking someone to get some information and published books about the women who spin spinsters, Zhao Fei decided to shoot a film called "The Women Who Spin Spins," a subject full of pessimism.

No matter how later generations see the self-combed women, they are independent women who pursue freedom and resist oppression...

But it cannot change the fact that a large number of these women who comb their hair for themselves do not do so voluntarily.

It is mainly caused by family and social environment.

Zhao Fei feels that there are many people in the mainland who can play this kind of role, but there is only one person who can span the period from girlhood to old age, and that is Gong Li!
Gong Li became interested and asked, "Is there a script?"

"There's no script yet, but he already has a story in his mind and has commissioned a great writer to write the script. And since you've worked with him, I guarantee you'll be satisfied."

"Great writer? Mo Yiyan?"

Lee Ye-seo laughed, “It wasn’t him, it was a guy with messy hair like a puppy.”

Gong Li chuckled and said, "I know, it's Yu Hua!"

"Yes, it's him." Li Yishu laughed: "Yu Hua has agreed to write the script. The script will be completed before April or May next year."

"If he were to write the script, then I would have no problem." Gong Li has worked with Zhao Fei before. The other party's photography skills are first-class, but what he lacks is the ability to tell stories.

Yu Hua's "To Live" is one of the best scripts Gong Li has ever seen and written. At the same time, Yu Hua's personal writing style is this kind of compassionate writing that makes people cry after reading it.

The theme of the self-combed girl is full of pessimism. With Yu Hua as the main writer, it will definitely be a good story! (End of this chapter)