I'm just trying to ride the wave of popularity!

Chapter 199 Kneeling won't earn you respect!

The list of nominees on the Berlin Film Festival's official website exploded like a bomb in Beijing at six in the morning.

【Tianyu】

On the projection screen in the conference room, the official announcement screenshot of "The Mine" being nominated stung everyone's eyes.

Everyone thought they had misread it!

Liang Xiaogang's pen clattered onto the joint letter, the ink spreading. The words, "We urge our Western counterparts to scrutinize..."

He stared intently at the shortlist!
Below the Chinese film "The Gangsters," there's a movie called "The Mine"!

"This is impossible!" Chen Kesen suddenly stood up and knocked over a chair!
He grabbed his laptop and frantically refreshed the latest news on the internet, even making the mouse click loudly as he scrolled!
"Has Hoffman gone mad? This anti-art garbage! How could this kind of film be nominated? Are they insane?!"

Before he could finish speaking, the assistant, trembling, hurriedly handed him another laptop.

On that laptop was the official website of the Berlin Film Festival.

The website's latest updated page prominently features Hoffman's bilingual (German and English) statement: "True art is never afraid of satire, just as a true hero dares to face a slap in the face. This young Chinese man reminds us of the early brilliance of cinema—Karl Hoffman!"

At that very moment, the projector displayed this text!
The meeting room fell silent at first!

Immediately afterwards...

"Slap? I'll fuck your mother!" Li Mingrui's face suddenly turned ashen, and he couldn't help but grab the ashtray and smash it against the projector.

The list of nominees on the screen twisted and deformed amidst exploding sparks, and shards of glass splashed onto Liang Xiaogang's face, drawing blood. Yet, he stared at the rubble on the floor as if he felt no pain!

They looked as if they had been slapped hard in the face, their faces burning with embarrassment!

A muffled thud came from the corner.

Director Wang from the Northwest Circle crumpled the joint letter into a ball, his eyes bloodshot, and his breathing became heavy!
Fuck!
He has signed up for almost every Berlin International Film Festival from the year 2000 to last year!

He recalled those "loess plateau suffering films" he had made specifically for Berlin last year. He remembered how he had used all sorts of connections and spent countless sums of money just to get a chance to appear at the film festival. He had even made countless "art films" as required, but every single one of them was rejected. Suffering, it seemed, wasn't enough...

"Fuck your mother!" Liang Xiaogang suddenly sprang to his feet, kicking over the coffee table, and the thermos rolled to Li Mingrui's feet.

Hot water soaked his leather shoes, but the former chairman of the Golden Horse Awards stared blankly at the shimmering reflection in his glass. The Berlin International Film Festival's slap had landed squarely on his face...

Right now!
His phone suddenly started vibrating wildly, and he answered the call.

The call was from Berlin!
He didn't seem to hear anything clearly what was said throughout, only that "they admire Zhou Yang's 'filmmaker's integrity'!"

"Backbone? Damn it! These sons of bitches, why are you talking about backbone now? I'll fucking kill you! Why didn't you talk about backbone before! You sons of bitches, why didn't you talk about backbone before!" Li Mingrui's expression suddenly twisted after finishing the phone call: "We've been made a fool of!"

At that moment, he turned around to tear down the "People in the Jianghu" poster on the wall, crumpled the petition letter into a ball, and stomped it hard on the ground!
Immediately afterward, he heard Xu Haibo's chilling voice echo in his ears: "Now, immediately! Right now, issue a statement congratulating 'The Mine' on its shortlist!"

Amidst the uproar in the room, Chen Kesen, panting heavily, picked up his pen and wrote a draft of a "congratulatory message" on the back of the joint letter: "[The film 'The Mine' showcases the diverse ecosystem of Chinese cinema!]"
As he wrote, he suddenly slammed the pen down on the table...

Just then, the phone rang.

Someone answered the phone!

"What? The relevant film departments in China are paying close attention to this matter and hope that we will view Zhou Yang in a positive light?"

"And they will increase their publicity efforts for the [mine]?"

"..."

....................................

early morning!

The moment the Berlin International Film Festival website updated its shortlist!
The entire Chinese internet instantly erupted in excitement.

It's seven o'clock in the morning.

[Movie House] Technician Li Cheng, rubbing his bloodshot eyes, stared at the surge in access requests per second in the backend, and frantically grabbed the phone: "Add three more servers! Damn it, are these people crazy?! They're insane! Damn it!"

Then, seeing the forum server crash, I was shocked!
Yesterday, with the premiere of "The Mine" over and more and more directors publicly and offline criticizing Zhou Yang, the servers of [Movie House] were constantly operating at overload until the early hours of the morning!
However, their relief was short-lived, as the server suddenly crashed!
He was staring intently at the homepage!

The homepage is a live post tracking the Berlin Film Festival nominations!
The source of the collapse was this post. The moderator "Old Gun" had just posted a screenshot of the shortlist for "The Mine" when the post was instantly bombarded with comments in bright red, and replies poured in like an avalanche!
In just over ten minutes, the post received a thousand replies!

[User "Miner's Son": Holy crap! They actually made the cut! Zhou Yang, that madman, has really messed things up!]

[User "Behind the Lens": I came as soon as I heard the rumors! I didn't expect to actually be shortlisted!]

[User "Winter in Berlin": Breaking news! The front page headline of the German newspaper "Der Spiegel" is "The Scalpel of an Oriental Madman"...]

One post after another...

News reports...

It immediately crashed the entire [Movie House] server!
After being paralyzed for nearly twenty minutes, [Movie House] finally returned to normal somewhat!
……

At 8:00 a.m., the newspaper and magazine section of Xidan Bookstore was packed with people rushing to buy books.

The front page of Southern Weekly prominently featured Hoffman's commentary, with the subtitle "A Slap Premeditated" smudged with ink.

A college student, clutching a newspaper, rushed out of the crowd, only to be suddenly stopped by a television reporter who grabbed his microphone: "What are your thoughts on the award-giving scandals exposed by 'The Mine'?"

"This isn't a cover-up!" The college student's glasses gleamed under the spotlight, his eyes trembling with excitement. "This is the scissors that tear apart the emperor's new clothes! This isn't a cover-up!"

After the college student's excited words, the entire Chinese entertainment media went crazy!
At 10:00 AM, 37 metropolitan newspapers across the country urgently printed extra editions.

The *Yanjing Youth Daily* devoted a full page to interviews with miners' families, while the *Southern Metropolis Daily* unearthed real rescue records from a mining area in Shanxi Province, where the filming took place. The most ruthless was the *Shanghai Culture Daily*, which featured two photos side-by-side on its front page: on the left was a still of Zhou Yang covered in coal dust in a mine, and on the right was a photo of a director kissing a carpet in Berlin last year!

In addition, the comments made by those directors who insulted Zhou Yang yesterday on the internet were also dug up by these media outlets, who wrote a very harsh comment on them!

This is not just a slap in the face Zhou Yang delivered to the West, but a slap in the face the West delivered to us!

Kneeling won't earn you respect! Standing, on the contrary, will attract attention!

【…】

……

At noon, the "Movie Life" room in the Qdog chat room was packed with over a thousand people at 11:00 AM.

The administrator, reluctant to remove those who posted pornographic images, wrote an announcement: 【Today we'll only discuss three topics: 1. The boundary between reality and performance; 2. Double standards at Western film festivals; 3. Will Zhou Yang appear in Berlin?】

It wasn't just them; on the internet, the gossipers, always eager for a good show, were frantically forwarding different versions of the scanned copy of the "Directors' Joint Letter" that had been found in the trash can in various QQ groups. Some people even saw the names of several directors and were preparing to make the matter even bigger when they suddenly saw a news article from [Tianyu Media].

"Fuck!"

"These directors were issuing a joint statement boycotting Zhou Yang's film one second, and the next they're all congratulating Zhou Yang on being nominated for the Berlin International Film Festival? Do they have any shame?"

"Damn it, what's even more shameless is what Chairman Li Mingrui, who's always criticizing Zhou Yang, is saying? He's welcoming Zhou Yang to bring 'The Mine' to the Hong Kong Film Awards? They're going to give Zhou Yang almost eight nominations?"

"..."

At 3 p.m., long lines formed outside audio-visual stores across the country.

The pirates rushed to produce the VCD of "The Mine" with a crude cover, but that didn't stop the crowds.

A scalper in a leather jacket squatted at the alley entrance, doubling the price of the discs he held every hour.

A man wearing a baseball cap quietly slipped a wad of cash to the stall owner: "I want the uncut version, the one with the leg being sawed off."

The bootlegger nodded excitedly and sold a few copies: "Not only does it have a leg sawing scene, but it also has action scenes, which are very gruesome and very muddy, all mixed together in the sand, making for an incredibly exciting scene!"

result!

The man in the baseball cap nodded, overjoyed, and excitedly went home. When he turned on the DVD player…

Suddenly discovered!

Fuck!
cheated!
It's Shen Long's version of "The Mine"!
................................................

evening.

sunset.

Back in Yanjing, Shen Long looked at the sales figures for "The Mine" with a complicated expression: "Are you sure it's my film 'The Mine,' which sold 3000 legitimate copies and 5000 pirated copies?"

The assistant's expression was complicated: "Most of the pirates have been recruited by Boss Zhou, but there are still a lot of swindlers. Not only did your 'The Mine' sell about 8000 copies, but your 'Sun Wukong vs. Superman 2' also sold more than 1000 copies through fraud. All the original stock has been cleared out!"

Shen Long remained in a state of complex emotion for a long time.

Then he plopped down in the chair.

Immediately afterwards, he made several phone calls to Zhang Jingya.

When Shen Long learned that Zhou Yang had finally woken up, he excitedly called Zhou Yang to tell him the news that "The Mine" had been shortlisted and various other details...

On the other end of the phone, Zhou Yang was silent for a moment, then seemed to have a very serious expression.

"Director Shen!"

"Mr. Zhou?"

"I need your cooperation in doing some things, and perhaps it will require some sacrifices from you!"

"I'll do anything if it's good for the company!" Shen Long exclaimed excitedly upon hearing this.

"it is good!"

..............................

Evening of February 23nd!
Zhou Yang, who had disappeared from the media spotlight for almost two days, suddenly reappeared at the entrance of [Xuan Shi Entertainment]!
He appeared completely unharmed, and then, during an interview, he said one sentence!

"Thank you for the invitation from the Berlin International Film Festival..."

"I also received an invitation to the Hong Kong Film Awards..."

"But I'm sorry..."

"Due to scheduling conflicts, I am temporarily unable to attend the Hong Kong Film Awards!"

"Because, March 1st..."

"It's us……"

"The 'Golden Broom Award' for Worst Film by Public Judges!"

"..."

(End of this chapter)