On September 2, after a long-distance flight of more than ten hours, Peng Yichen finally arrived in Berlin.

When people think of Venice, they often think of the "city of water".

As the only city in the world without cars, Venice is like God's tears to the world, it is full of crystal and tenderness, like a romantic dream floating on the blue waves.

But in Peng Yichen's heart, he first knew that Venice was indeed because of Shakespeare's "The Merchant of Venice". As one of the immortal masterpieces in the history of world theater, every actor once dreamed of playing a role in Shakespeare's plays.

The Venice Film Festival, as the oldest film festival in the world, has always been known as the father of international film festivals.

Every year in the golden autumn of September, many actors, celebrities, and media reporters from all over the world gather on the Lido Island in Venice to participate in this feast of the film industry.

Among so many films, it is not easy for a film to be shortlisted in the main competition.

With so many film masters from all over the world gathered together, it is difficult to win the final Golden Lion Award.

And as we all know, the Berlinale favors political films, and Cannes is more inclusive, combining business and art perfectly.

The Venice Film Festival has long favored art films and avant-garde experimental films with obscure content and a very high threshold for appreciation.

Since the beginning of the new century, the Venice Film Festival has completely taken the route of niche artistic films.

has always had a preference for Chinese films, and has also created many famous Chinese directors and actresses.

Like Jia Zhangke, Wang Xiaoshuai, Li An, Liao Fan, etc., have all won at the Venice Film Festival.

But this attitude of completely abandoning Hollywood and making it clear that it doesn't play with you has also made the Venice Film Festival less and less exposed and commercial, and its influence is not as good as before.

Cannes, on the other hand, has a large number of Hollywood stars every year because of its refusal to accept Hollywood filmmakers and commercial films, and in recent years, it has gradually become the first film festival in Europe.

Therefore, it is somewhat incredible for Peng Yichen to accept the invitation of the Venice Film Festival and directly participate in the selection of the main competition unit of "Shocking Black Gold" this time.

After all, the film is more of a political film, and its advantage at the Berlinale may be greater.

In the end, Peng Yichen could only attribute this invitation to the Italian people's preference for club movies.

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After getting off the plane, Peng Yichen took Yu Jing and two assistants to get on a traditional Venetian gondola boat and rushed to the booked hotel.

Sitting on this small boat, Peng Yichen looked at the century-old buildings that can be seen everywhere on both sides of the strait, and felt as if he was shuttling through the corridor of history.

The sound of Italian opera came from a distance leisurely, which made Peng Yichen, who had never been abroad in his previous life, feel a little out of time, as if he was in a romantic dream.

It was the first time he had been so relaxed and happy since he crossed into this world.

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At about 3 o'clock in the afternoon, the group finally arrived at the hotel.

Zhou Jianhao, the boss of the club, had already waited in the hotel lobby early with the people from his film company.

Wait for Peng Yichen and Yu Jing to open the room and settle down.

Zhou Jianhao took Peng Yichen, a film director and producer, and called two tour guides and translators who had been hired in advance, and went directly to the organizing committee of the Venice Film Festival to report.

It seems that Zhou Jianhao is not bothered by the fact that "Shocking Black Gold" cannot be released for the time being, and he is obviously very satisfied and excited about his company's first film to be able to participate in the main competition unit of the Venice Film Festival.

Towards the end of the evening, Zhou Jianhao and Peng Yichen returned to the hotel, and the report went very smoothly.

To Peng Yichen's surprise, they learned from the staff of the organizing committee that the chairman of the jury of the Venice Film Festival this time turned out to be director Chen Guozhong.

Sun Yizou didn't tell him about this matter in advance, and it was obviously something that was only confirmed in the last few days.

With Chen Guozhong, his own person, serving as the chairman of the jury, the possibility of "Shocking Black Gold" winning the award at the film festival has increased a lot.

Not long after Peng Yichen returned to the hotel, cultural officials from the Chinese embassy in Italy also arrived at the hotel.

He briefly introduced Peng Yichen and Zhou Jianhao to the general selection process of the Venice Film Festival.

All the films participating in the festival are roughly divided into two parts, one is to sign up for the exhibition by themselves, and the other is invited by the organizer.

The opening ceremony is generally relatively simple, that is, about 10 days of free screening time for the participating films to be screened for media reporters, audiences and film critics.

Then there is the closing ceremony, which is the film awards ceremony.

Usually the organizing committee will greet some crews in advance and ask you not to leave early, which means that you should want to win the award again.

Those who didn't greet you were basically runners.

As a film actively invited by the film festival, "Shocking Black Gold" has clearly won four awards: Golden Lion Award, Best Director, Best Actor, and Best Screenplay.

They are considered to be the films that the organizing committee said hello in advance to save until the end.

In other words, if nothing happens, the final film will win at least one of these four awards.

With this basic understanding, Peng Yichen and Zhou Jianhao both relaxed a lot.

After having dinner with the embassy officials, Peng Yichen spent his first night in Venice with Yu Jing peacefully.

The next 10 days will be free to show the participating films.

Zhou Jianhao had no interest in these art films, he volunteered, carried a copy of "Shocking Black Gold", took the translation, and looked for foreign film dealers everywhere, wanting to sell the film abroad.

Peng Yichen took Yu Jing and participated in the premieres of various movies everywhere under the guidance of the tour guide.

Of course, they just bought tickets to go to the movie, and no one invited them.

Peng Yichen and Yu Jing's fame is limited to Chinese and Greater China films.

In Venice, they were just two ordinary spectators.

The tour guide who took them around to watch movies was a local who had attended college in Huaxia for 4 years.

It can be seen that he himself is definitely a loyal fan of niche art films.

In the past few days, he has dragged Peng Yichen and Yu Jing to watch this kind of movie.

From "The Battle of Aragu" to "Night Walking" to "Atonement", all are the works of European art film masters.

Of course, Peng Yichen also saw several Chinese-language films that also participated in the film festival.

Among them, there is also a "City of Love" directed by the great director Li An, which won three nominations for the Golden Lion Award, Best Director, and Best Actor.

By all accounts, the film is the biggest competitor to Black Gold.

Peng Yichen, who originally admired Li An very much, did not take the initiative to get acquainted with the Chinese director at the premiere, because he was worried that the competitive relationship between the two sides would cause unnecessary misunderstandings between the other party.

Therefore, in the end, he will definitely wait for the end of the film festival to find another opportunity to meet with director Li An.

I watched movies like this for 5 or 6 days, until Peng Yichen was about to vomit European art films.

The time has finally come on September 8th, and the day of the premiere of "Black Gold Today" at the film festival has arrived.

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