The two-week Cannes Film Festival is coming to an end, and all 23 films in the main competition have already been staged. Due to the lack of active representation and film participation in the United States, and the absence of top masters such as Akira Kurosawa, the films participating in this year's Cannes Film Festival are relatively mediocre, and there are no masterpieces that have left their mark on film history.

The only exception is probably "Heaven's Gate," which is not only a famous disaster in the history of cinema, but also the end of the New Hollywood movement. "Heaven's Gate" originally had a budget of only 7.6 million, but due to the success of director Michael Cimino's previous film "The Deer Hunter", the film was reckless during the filming process, and the studio chose to compromise, and the final film cost a total of $44 million. After the movie was released, it was badly criticized by critics, and at this time, Cimirono chose to compromise. At his request, Luen Mei Pictures took back the film from the cinema and cut the four-hour film into two and a half hours, but this did not save the film, and the box office was only a pitiful 3.5 million.

In order to save the loss, Camino signed up for this year's Cannes Film Festival, hoping to win the award in Cannes and sell at a good price in Europe. But "Heaven's Gate" was also badly received after its release in Cannes, and the film companies did not welcome the film, because the guy Camino did not want rhythm, characters, or narrative for the sake of structural and aesthetic integrity, and such a film had no market prospects at all.

The fiasco of "Heaven's Gate" not only directly led to the bankruptcy of United States, one of the seven major Hollywood film companies, but more importantly, Hollywood producers no longer dared to hand over the final editing rights to the director in a big production, but took it into their own hands, and the control of American directors over the film gradually weakened, and since then the studio has occupied a complete dominant position in the film, and the New Hollywood movement has completely ended.

However, 30 years later, Camino debuted at the Venice Film Festival with a new version of "Heaven's Gate" that was praised by the media and critics. Almost everyone thought that the critics' criticism of the film was ridiculous, because "Heaven's Gate" was so magnificent.

The Chinese film delegation did not attend the opening ceremony, but the organizing committee made a special call to invite them to attend the closing ceremony. Xu Wangqiu has participated in many film festivals and won awards, so he did not react too much to attending the closing ceremony of the film festival, but the other members of the delegation basically participated in the closing ceremony of the Cannes Film Festival for the first time, and they were as excited as the New Year. Especially Zhang Yimou, after entering the main venue of the movie palace, he actually went to the toilet twice last time.

Xu Wangqiu felt funny in his heart, our movie was not shortlisted, we are here to be the audience, why are we so excited?

The closing ceremonies of the three major film festivals are very simple, unlike the Oscars, which are made into a grand gala, there are no singing and dancing programs, and there are no talk shows. After the host finished speaking, the chairman of the film festival summarized a few sentences, and the chairman of the jury briefly summarized a few words, and then began to issue awards.

The Cannes Film Festival has a lot of competitions and a lot of awards, but many of them were awarded yesterday and in the afternoon. Now the awards are presented in the short film section, as well as in the main competition unit. The winner of the short film Palme d'Or is a Frenchman, but Xu Wangqiu has never heard of his name at all, and he should not have mixed well later. The situation is similar in the main competition section. Among the several award-winning films, Xu Wangqiu has only watched "The Chariot of Fire", "Enchanted", and "Mephistopheles", and has never heard of other films at all.

There was a bit of an accident when the Palme d'Or was presented. When the president of the jury announced that the Palme d'Or was won by the Polish film "Iron Man", the audience applauded and whispered from the press gallery. When director Wajda walked on the stage, there were boos from the scene.

The Chinese film treatment delegation was a little surprised when they heard that "Iron Man" won the Palme d'Or. The film "Iron Man" was filmed well, but it was not good to say, no one expected that this film would win the Palme d'Or.

At the end of the award ceremony, Xu Wangqiu and many guests went to the restaurant to participate in the closing reception. Zhang Yimou took a dinner plate, found an empty seat, and chatted with Xu Wangqiu about this year's award-winning film. Zhang Yimou said quite unconvinced: "I really think "Iron Man" is average, but I didn't expect to win the Palme d'Or, and I don't know how they judged it?"

Xu Wangqiu said with a smile: "The key to this film being affirmed by the Western media and winning the Palme d'Or is that this is a film that carries the red flag and opposes the red flag." Poland is a socialist country, and this film is a literary and artistic revelation of Polish society. It is quite normal for such a film to receive the highest courtesy in Cannes. ”

Zhang Yimou was very surprised when he heard this: "How can this be? The Cannes Film Festival is a palace of art, art should be pure, art should be separated from politics, how can it be done like this?"

Xu Wangqiu shook his head when he heard this: "You have heard too much about the poisonous chicken soup of our school teachers, and you naively think that art is pure. Movies have a propaganda function, which makes it difficult to escape the influence of politics. The vast majority of films in the world have more or less political elements, and it is difficult to put politics aside. Neorealism was developed by the Italian Communist Party, and several important directors were basically party members. The New Wave is also related to social movements, and the May Storm can be said to have been created by filmmakers. Wajda, the works of Polish school directors are also inseparable from politics. If you are detached from the political background, you will not understand these people's movies at all. It can be said that to think that movies have nothing to do with politics is either really stupid or pretending to be stupid. ”

Zhang Yimou smiled: "Okay, I belong to the kind of person who is really stupid in your mouth, and I always thought that the film festival was very pure." ”

Xu Wangqiu waved his hand and said, "It's not your fault. For a long time in the past, especially during the period of the movement, the film creation in our country was heavily interfered with by politics, and the creation was greatly restricted. After the end of the movement, people in the film industry desperately wanted to get rid of the influence of politics and gain creative freedom, so many people shouted that art should be pure, and art should be separated from politics. To this end, they boasted that the three major film festivals were temples of pure art.

In fact, the Venice Film Festival was founded by Mussolini and is itself a product of politics, while the Berlin Film Festival was proposed by American film officials in Germany to demonstrate the values of freedom and democracy to the East. The Cannes Film Festival is the same, it belongs to the Western camp, it has a prejudice against the East, against the socialist countries. For our films to win an award like the Palme d'Or at a film festival, they must either criticize our culture or the system, as in "Iron Man". ”

Xu Wangqiu is not talking nonsense, there are many examples, Wong Kar-wai's films are highly regarded in the West, and their artistic value is extremely high. But Wong Kar-wai has never been able to win the highest award at the three major film festivals, and only won the Best Director Award in Cannes, and he was able to win this award Gong Li helped a lot, because Gong Li was a judge of that Cannes Film Festival.

Another example is Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 911, a film that slammed George W. Bush and the Iraq War, which won the Palme d'Or. Three years later, Michael Moore came to Cannes with his new film "Medical Insider", but the film was not even shortlisted for the main competition unit. For the Cannes Film Festival, they love to criticize the American health care system. But Michael Moore's film is a big taboo, that is, when he criticizes the American health care system, he sings the praises of the Cuban health care system. Cuba is a socialist country, and it is naturally taboo to boast about Cuba's medical system. As a result, this high-level documentary was coldly treated by Cannes. ”

Zhang Yimou said puzzledly: "Didn't you say that the European literary and artistic circles are the mainstream, and even many artists are members of the Communist Party, how can the film festival be so kind to us?"

Xu Wangqiu shook his head and said, "Our ancestor once said that if it is not my race, its heart will be different. The same is true for Westerners. During World War II, the United States set up concentration camps to house residents of hostile countries, as well as people born in the United States, as well as descendants of hostile nations. In reality, however, only the descendants of Dongying were imprisoned in the camps, while the large numbers of Germans and Italians were unscathed. Why? Because the Dongying people are yellow, it's as simple as that. It's the same in the film industry. Our skin is different from theirs, our culture is different from theirs, and they can't really accept us. Therefore, we do not have to cut our heads to gain the recognition of the West, but we should do a good job of developing our own culture. ”

Three days later, the flight from Paris to Peking landed at the capital airport. Xu Wangqiu and the others got off the plane, each with a smile of victory on their faces, as if they had returned victorious from the battlefield.

The purpose of the Chinese film delegation to Cannes is to sell films, that is, to earn foreign exchange for the country, and they really did it.

Film Export's Falcon sold for $3.73 million and acquired a 40 percent stake in Miramax, giving the company its own distribution channel in North America.

China Film also sold $760,000 for its films. China Film Company's films were able to sell for 760,000 yuan, and the export company helped a lot. Due to the hot sales of "Falcon", filmmakers are rushing to ask for it. When Xu Wangqiu negotiated with the film company, they asked to buy the copyright of "Falcon", and they had to buy a film from China Film Company. Although the filmmaker is not very happy, in order to get the copyright of "Falcon", he can only fabricate his nose and admit it.

Wang Lanxi was very satisfied with the delegation's performance in Cannes, "Falcon" sold in Cannes for $3.73 million, plus $4 million in Dongying, that is, 7.73 million, plus Xiangjiang, Singapore, Malaysia and other regions, as well as socialist countries, the final income of "Falcon" will definitely exceed 10 million US dollars. With this achievement, the work behind the export company will be well advanced.

In the office of the general manager of the film export company, Wang Lanxi beckoned Xu Wangqiu to sit down and personally poured Xu Wangqiu a cup of tea. He looked at Xu Wangqiu and said with a smile: "The export company has been established for more than a year, and the criticism has never stopped. Now that "Falcon" is selling so well overseas, it proves that it is right to engage in export companies, and many tasks that could not be promoted before can be promoted. "Falcon" is about to be released in Xiangjiang, and you have to bring the crew and actors to Xiangjiang to promote it. When you come back from Hong Kong, you will take over the art center and take care of the work of film creation. ”

Xu Wangqiu also hoped to take over the art center as soon as possible, and nodded: "No problem." I may have to stay a few more days in Xiangjiang this time, I want to see if there are suitable directors and projects, and if there are, I will try to get them over. ”

Wang Lanxi knows that there is a shortage of directors who can make high-quality commercial films in the mainland, and this problem cannot be solved in the short term, and Xiangjiang has always been good at commercial films, and attracting the cooperation of Xiangjiang commercial film directors is undoubtedly the best solution, so he said: "You are the person in charge of the art center, this is your responsibility, just do it boldly." Speaking of this, he suddenly remembered someone: "By the way, this time you can go to Xiangjiang to find Li Hanxiang, he has a project in his hand." ”