Huayu: Reborn in 97, transferring to the Central Academy of Drama's star-studded class

The Venice Film Festival is held on the Lido island next to Venice.

You need to take a water bus from the main island of Venice. Well, it's actually a boat, called a Vaporetto, which is translated as water bus in China.

It took about twenty minutes by boat to reach Lido Island.

This is a long, narrow island, more than ten kilometers long, one kilometer at its widest point and only one hundred meters at its narrowest. To put that into perspective, it would only take Usain Bolt ten seconds to run from one end to the other.

As soon as Lou Ye arrived on the island with Miss Ying, she dragged him to a five-star hotel called the Venice Lido Paradise Hotel.

Okay, it's still a translation issue. The literal translation is "Excellent Hotel Venice Lido Resort," which sounds pretty odd.

Because of the film festival, all the hotels on the island are fully booked, and the front desk said there are no rooms available.

But where is this place? It's a capitalist world. Miss Ying used money to pave the way and bought two luxury suites at a premium of several times.

Lou Ye, who was used to being poor, couldn't help but click his tongue in amazement; it really seemed like they were on vacation.

Miss Ying waved her hand dismissively, "What money are you saving for Jiang Lai? He's just eating off rich dogs."

The two of them hurried to the top floor, where Lou Ye unexpectedly met Steven Spielberg and excitedly rushed up to him, greeting him repeatedly.

The internationally renowned director was just about to leave when he saw a silly guy looking up at him, begging for a pat on the head, and he was completely dumbfounded.

Thinking that anyone who could stay in a luxury suite at this time must be someone extraordinary, he responded kindly.

When we talked, well, I'd never heard of it.

All I know is that he's a Chinese director, and it was Sister Ying next to me who translated for him.

In the end, all I could do was keep apologizing, saying I had other things to do and wanted to leave.

But Lou Ye couldn't understand, and kept grabbing the other person's hand and grinning like an idiot. This was a living, breathing director! He had finally met a real person.

Finally, Sister Ying couldn't stand it anymore, so she went up and slapped the girl, dragged her away, and finally rescued the famous director from Lou Ye's clutches.

Spielberg nodded gratefully to Sister Ying.

After leaving Lou Ye in the room, Miss Ying went back to her own room, changed into a beach dress, put on sunglasses, and ran to the hotel's private beach. She had to enjoy her rare vacation time.

Lou Ye was bored by himself, so he followed along. The beach was full of handsome men and beautiful women, all showing off their figures in bikinis and shorts.

Lou Ye was dressed the most properly, while Miss Ying quietly distanced herself from him. Her eyes, hidden behind sunglasses, leered as she scanned the beach, tears streaming uncontrollably from the corners of her mouth.

Lou Ye assumed she was looking at those blond, muscular men with eight-pack abs, but when one of them came over to chat her up, Miss Ying yelled in Chinese, "Get lost! Don't bother me while I'm admiring the pretty girls!"

The foreign guy looked completely bewildered. Only then did Sister Ying realize what was happening, and she cursed him again in English.

The young man ran away in astonishment after hearing this.

Lou Ye clicked his tongue inwardly, thinking, "It seems we do have some common interests."

Although Yingjie came with a vacation mindset, she was quite dedicated when it came to doing serious work.

As mentioned before, once a film is nominated for one of the three major film awards, it has the leverage to be at the negotiating table, and many film distributors will approach it for talks.

Yingjie did a lot of research in private and rejected all the offers from these people.

Lou Ye was still a little dissatisfied and questioned why he hadn't been asked for his opinion.

Yingjie glanced at him indifferently, "These people are all here to collect trash. Do you think what you're filming is trash? If you think so, then I'll call them back."

Lou Ye immediately shut up.

When the opening ceremony arrived, Sister Ying noticed that Lou Ye didn't even have a decent outfit, so she went out and bought him a designer suit, and also bought herself an evening gown.

Anyway, it's Jiang's money that's being spent, so he doesn't feel the pinch at all when it comes to spending his own brother's money.

As the saying goes, clothes make the man, and the two of them really did have that kind of style when they walked down the red carpet. Unfortunately, when everyone took a closer look, they realized, "Who are they? We don't recognize them."

Yingjie dutifully acted as the translator, but she only translated phrases like "Go this way" and "Sit here."

Nobody paid any attention to them.

The only useful thing was when the opening film was playing; while watching it, Yingjie didn't forget to translate it for Lou Ye.

It's quite interesting that the Berlin Film Festival shows the closing film while the Venice Film Festival shows the opening film. However, what they have in common is that they both invite internationally renowned directors who don't participate in the awards.

This year, Venice invited Steven Spielberg to screen the film "Saving Private Ryan".

If you think about it, why don't these big directors participate in the awards? They just want to participate in the Oscars. If you don't invite them, they won't bother to come.

The three self-proclaimed highest halls of cinema still have to fawn over them every year.

They openly say they look down on the Big Three, but secretly they're secretly exchanging pleasantries.

Take a look.

After the shortlisted films began to be screened, Sister Ying followed Lou Ye around, busy as a bee.

At the end of the premiere, the entire audience stood up and applauded.

Audiences initially had little hope for this film, the only one from the East, because they didn't recognize the director or the lead actor.

Unlike Hou Hsiao-hsien, Zhang Yimou, Wang Jiawei, Leung Ka-fai, Tony Leung, Gong Li, and Maggie Cheung, who can all get by by showing their faces at the three major film and television companies.

Surprisingly, the movie was quite good, especially the male and female leads, who were very popular with the audience.

Lou Ye knew this was a performance the audience loved, and excitedly pulled Sister Ying onto the stage.

The audience's applause abruptly stopped.

Who is this guy? We want to see the male lead! We want to see the female lead!

Oh, it's the director. Well, that's alright then, let's give him a little face.

Applause broke out again, sporadically.

After that, the film "Suzhou River" became a huge hit in Venice, and various film critics emerged one after another.

"This is an extremely exciting, outstanding, and unique work! It is bizarre, fantastical, and full of captivating charm."

"A postmodern fairy tale about romantic obsession; the director's approach is commendable."

"We can foresee the rise of a new director in the East. What's even more surprising is the performance of the two main characters in the film. Their novel Eastern faces bring an ultimate visual experience."

Lou Ye would flip through various publications every day and have Ying Jie translate them for him. Ying Jie was extremely annoyed, but Lou Ye would always listen with a radiant face.

The film company raised its price, and this time Sister Ying respectfully asked Lou Ye for his opinion. However, the huge success of "Suzhou River" boosted Lou Ye's confidence, and he directly said to wait until after the awards ceremony.

He was confident that he would at least win a trophy in Venice.

What Lou Ye didn't notice was that there wasn't a single Chinese face at this year's Venice Film Festival. He thought it was normal for foreign countries, but in fact, given that the three major film festivals are increasingly focusing on Chinese-language films, this situation is quite strange.

Even if no Chinese-language films are involved, they will invite a Chinese director or actor to be a judge.

Therefore, assuming the film is of good quality, these film critics naturally won't say anything unpleasant.

It is worth mentioning that on the eve of the closing ceremony, the festival's artistic director, Felice Laudardio, suddenly resigned without warning, angrily denouncing the competition as "stupid and arrogant" and expressing great dissatisfaction with the jury.

The international community was in an uproar, but Lou Ye and Sister Ying had no time to care about any of that.

Soon, it was September 13th, and the closing ceremony began.

Just like Lao Jia before, the two hurriedly walked across the red carpet and took their seats. The current chairman led the members of the judging panel out from backstage and addressed the attendees.

It seems that they were completely unaffected by the public opinion surrounding the art director's resignation.

The awards ceremony has officially begun.

The first award presented was the Lifetime Achievement Award, which resulted in three awards being given out, causing some uproar at the scene.

Then, the announcer on stage announced: "Next, we will present an award established for the first time this year, in memory of Marcelo Mastroianni, who passed away two years ago. He dedicated his life to film and contributed many brilliant performances. Let us observe a moment of silence in tribute to this actor!"

The entire audience fell silent, heads bowed in silent tribute.

Lou Ye didn't know what was happening, but he did it anyway.

"So, this newly established award will be called the Marcelo Mastroianni Best Newcomer Award, and the winner is! Sozo River! Gionle!"

The audience cheered; they recognized the award.

Lou Ye clapped along with a smile, while Sister Ying rolled her eyes and stood up. "Let's go, time to receive the award."

"Huh?" Lou Ye was stunned.

It can only be said that foreigners don't understand pinyin. The English name of "Suzhou River" is "suzhou River," but foreigners pronounce it as "su zou," and "ji ang lai," that's right, "jiang lai."

Lou Ye, standing on the stage, was dumbfounded. The lines he had secretly memorized didn't include this part! He wasn't the male lead.

Yingjie ignored his cries for help, so Lou Ye could only frantically say, "Thank you, thank you."

The audience noticed that this wasn't the male lead; they had all seen the movie.

Finally, Sister Ying went up and said, "Jianglai is currently filming and unfortunately cannot come to accept the award. Thank you all very much for your support."

Back in his seat, Lou Ye was very disappointed that his first time standing on the podium at the three major awards ceremonies was to accept an award for someone else. Instead, he became even more excited for the awards to come. He got carried away.

Unfortunately, "Suzhou River" was completely ineligible for any of the subsequent awards.

The Golden Lion was awarded to the Italian film "Laughter," while the highest-rated film, "Black Cat, White Cat," only received a Best Director award.

When the Yugoslavian director Kusturica went on stage to accept the award, he said dejectedly, "I thought I could have received a higher honor, but I still thank the jury and the chairman."

When the Golden Lion was announced, the audience was even more in uproar, commenting that "the highest honor was chosen from the most disappointing works."

People instantly understood why the resigning artistic director had called this year's film festival "both foolish and arrogant."

Lou Ye could not hide his disappointment and said self-deprecatingly, "If I had known, I would have just memorized that poem."

He didn't know that if it weren't for the incident caused by the artistic director, the Best Newcomer award would have gone to an Italian actor.

Although the film's quality is a step up from the original timeline, and Jiang Lai's performance is excellent, well, how should I put it in a film festival setting?

Wen has no first, Wu has no second.

Sometimes it all comes down to luck, so don't take it too seriously.

Although no Chinese people participated in this year's Venice Film Festival except for Lou Ye and his colleague, the media is certainly the most informed.

The next day, the whole country was in an uproar.

What movie is "Suzhou River"? And who is Lou Ye?

Oh, it's just an underground film that was privately screened. That's fine then.

Who is Jiang Lai? Who is Zhou Xun?

Hey! This is eligible for reimbursement!

Zhou Xun's agent, Li Xiaowan, noticed the buzz and quickly took action.

Zhou Xun nominated for Best Actress at the Venice Film Festival!

"The leading actor won the Best Newcomer award at the Venice Film Festival!"

When Xiaowan's assistant asked why she had to bring the male lead along, Xiaowan gave a wry smile.

Luckily, I did some background research on this young man before. You never know until you do, and Zhou Xun actually benefited from it.