Liu Yan and her entourage arrived in Venice the day before the opening ceremony, so that they could have plenty of time to prepare for the red carpet the next day. The plane landed directly on the Venice island of Lido, where the festival was held, a slender island about 12 kilometers long, which is not only a film festival but also a world-famous holiday destination.

On the same day, they checked into a hotel on the island of Lido in Venice, and they didn't have time to wander around in the resort anymore - first the film festival staff came to register them, and during the event, idlers and others were not allowed to roam the island, even if it was obvious on the red carpet or fans and tourists who came to chase stars, they also needed to apply for documents in advance.

Liu Yan and Li Xiaoru only have an admission pass for the opening ceremony, while Ye Zi'an and Tao Zhiyao have a universal pass for the whole venue. But it doesn't matter, after participating in the opening ceremony, Liu Yan went to Bolzano with Li Xiaoru.

In the afternoon of the same day, Ye Zi'an convened a meeting with everyone, mainly emphasizing discipline, time, competition rules and precautions, and the film organizer gave him a process document, and he only knew at this time which films were shortlisted for the film festival. He singled out the important ones and introduced them to everyone, and by the way, popularized science for people like Liu Yan and Li Xiaoru who didn't know how to do it.

For example, the film festival has several competition units, the main competition unit, the horizon unit, and the screening unit...... Just like people are divided into three, six, nine and so on, the film festival divides the shortlisted films into different grades. The main competition unit is undoubtedly the best, but in the past ten years, no Chinese film has been able to enter this unit. This time, "Dream of the Late Ming Dynasty" did not create a miracle, it was shortlisted for the horizon unit. There are also awards for Best Director, Best Actor and Actress in the Horizon section.

The horizon unit is not so bad, the grade is second only to the head of the main competition unit, including "The Dream of the Late Ming Dynasty", a total of 18 films were shortlisted for this wish, by 7 directors, screenwriters, producers and other world-class celebrities as judges, after 10 days of rotation to watch the final selection of the winning films.

The biggest difference between it and the main competition unit is probably that the directors of the shortlisted films are all newcomers - those who are participating in the Venice Film Festival for the first time are all young directors. Ye Zi'an meets the above requirements, so his films are classified into the Horizon unit.

Ye Zi'an has no complaints at all, the Venice Film Festival has always been known for being friendly to newcomers to films, and here, he is a newcomer. In recent years, the new directors who have gone out from the Venice Film Festival have subsequently appeared on the stage of the Oscars, which seems to have become a trend, and foreign media have commented that Venice has become a place where masters can be discovered, young and promising, but unknown foreign directors, if they want to go to the international stage through a platform, Venice is undoubtedly the best platform.

Ye Zi'an is 34 years old, and it has been a full decade since he made his own blockbuster and teenage debut movie "Outside the Window", in this decade, not to mention the movies he shot before, whether it is "Listen, the Sound of the Wind" or "The Dream of the Late Ming Dynasty", or even "Little Walnut", which is about to be released in China, he feels that he has no breakthrough, no innovation, and it seems that he is making progress - income expansion growth, but in fact, he is standing still.

Domestic audiences are willing to contribute to the box office for him, but when it comes to his name and talks about his movies, it seems that he will always be worse than Lin Zhi and even Cai Henian. Ye Zi'an knows that his skills are not enough, and he has not encountered a better script, not that the scripts of "Dream of the Late Ming Dynasty" and "Little Walnut" are not good, but there is always something missing, is it aura?

Maybe this has something to do with the opportunity - if it weren't for Yu Zhan's acquisition of Galaxy Film and Television, he wouldn't even be qualified to come to the Venice Film Festival!

Compared to Ye Zi'an's psychological burden, others have almost no pressure.

Liu Yan looked at the information in her hand, the films shortlisted for the main competition unit are all the works of internationally renowned directors, and American and European films are the mainstream.

One of the American films, "White Soul," is particularly noteworthy for Liu Yan because of its leading actor Alan Smith, and the film is the opening film of the main competition unit at the opening ceremony tomorrow.

"Doesn't that mean that Alan will also come to walk the red carpet tomorrow?" The young ladies who had just chatted about Alan's gossip were a little excited.

"Not only Alan, there will be so many big-name Hollywood stars and directors on the red carpet tomorrow, it's just a star-studded group. ”

"Let's not be presumptuous, Senior Tang Tu is no worse than Alan!"

Li Xiaoru exaggerated and made Tang Tu laugh, "I'm very happy that you say that, but I really have no comparison with Alan, he is an international actor, a big name, a senior, we are not at the same level." ”

Alan has won the Palme d'Or at Cannes, of course, not with a popcorn commercial like "Future Heroes", in fact, he is better at shooting that kind of in-depth feature films, almost every feature film he starred in can be on the stage of major awards in the world, in addition to the Cannes Film Festival, he also has two films that have been nominated for Oscars, but unfortunately they did not win in the end.

None of them have seen this "White Soul", which seems to be Venice as the location of the world premiere. The director of this movie is also a Hollywood bigwig, especially good at tragic movies. Looking at the name "White Soul", I think it's a tragedy.

Audiences don't usually like tragedies, but the judges of the festival do!

Everyone thinks that this Venice Golden Lion Award is eighty percent of Alan's bag.

"Fortunately, we are shortlisted for the horizon unit, so we don't have to compete with others, otherwise we will definitely have no chance, and we won't even be able to eat the rice residue," Tao Zhiyao was originally unhappy that "Dream of the Late Ming Dynasty" was divided into the second tier, and now he is happy. Take an award for Best Film, Best Director and the like in the Horizon unit, and you can still blow to the sky when you go back!

"Isn't Alan in a dispute with Mike Films, and whether he can come to the festival is a question mark," Ms. Liu said, adding that based on her experience of several unpleasant dealings with Michael, she felt that Alan might not be able to get out so easily.

But she was clearly wrong.

That night, Alan arrived on the island of Lido, where all the media stationed on the island swarmed and surrounded the airport.

At the same airport, when Liu Yan and the others arrived, only a handful of 9 media came to interview, of which 4 were Chinese media and 2 were American media - if it were not for Tang Tu and Li Xiaoru's performance in Milan, I am afraid there would not even be 9 media.

The local entertainment news in Italy is pushing content related to Alan, and his popularity in Europe is also super high.

Liu Yan looked at the video, he was smiling at the camera in the airport, and suddenly remembered the photo of him and Yu Zhan hooking their shoulders.