The sky in Venice in August is clear and charming, the water surface is as smooth as a mirror, even the reflection of the sun will not have the slightest vibration, looking up, a piece of blue and quiet, can be called the color of the water and sky, at this time Lido Island is at the busiest time of the year, the famous Venice Film Festival kicked off on August 27. Pen & Fun & Pavilion www.biquge.info

A long red carpet stretched from afar to the pier to greet the guests arriving by boat.

In addition to the members of the jury of this year's Venice Film Festival, the most important guests are the members of the crew of "Focus", "Focus" will not only participate in the competition of the main competition unit of this Venice Film Festival, but also be selected as the opening film of this year's Venice Film Festival.

As the crew of the opening film, Murphy and the rest of the Stanton were the last to walk the red carpet.

This red carpet feels very cold to Murphy, there are many media reporters, but there are few fans.

According to what he had read in the newspapers, there were at least a third more reporters at this year's Venice Film Festival than in previous editions, many of whom were coming for Focus and Stanton's partymen.

Murphy will not be presumptuous, in early March, he won the Oscar for Best Director, James Franco of the Stanton Party and Margot Robbie won Best Actor and Best Actress respectively, these are quite the cost of multimedia attention, especially his conflict with the Catholic Church, which has risen to the level of Hollywood films, and Twentieth Century Fox has done enough publicity and hype for "Spotlight", and it is difficult not to attract media attention.

The dense crowd of protesters not far from the red carpet is the best proof of this.

Before the arrival of the Spotlight crew, the 71st Venice Film Festival opened amid protests and whistles, all sorts of whistles and slogans from the procession of Catholic believers on the side of the red carpet, who were outnumbered by the crowd of people who held up slogans in support of Catholicism......

The lack of fan attention has not been a year or two, and this is a problem that the Venice Film Festival has often encountered in the last ten years.

However, Murphy came here for his own purpose, which was to create a buzz in the closest place to the Catholic Church, and the original crew did the same, and the end result proved to be very good.

"Look over here!"

In the media area in front of the Palazzo Cinéma, Murphy and Gal Gadot stood in a row with all the Stanton henchmen for the press to take pictures.

It was also a big gathering of Stanton's party.

"There are a lot of journalists."

At the end of the group photo, Robert Downey Jr. looked around, "There are very few fans. ”

James Franco shrugged, "The Venice Film Festival is down. ”

Murphy and the others all nodded slightly, fully agreeing with James Franco's statement.

Indeed, as the crew of the opening film, it is a little unauthentic to evaluate the Venice Film Festival in this way, but the actual situation is here, and it will not be better if Murphy and others do not say it.

"If there weren't those guys who protested." Jonah Hill looked at where the protest crowd had gathered, "This Venice Film Festival is too deserted. ”

Margot Robbie seemed nonchalant, "The more people protesting, the better, so that there is a topic." ”

Several people walked to the front of the Palazzo Cinema in Venice, greeted the members of the jury of the festival, headed by Alexander Dissprat, and then walked through the main entrance of the Palazzo du Cinéma, led by the staff of the organizers.

"You and Gadot don't seem to be in good spirits."

Seth Rogen found that Murphy and Gal Gadot talked very little today, "Is the jet lag not good?" ”

"Don't mention it." Murphy shook his head, "Last night was a nightmare. ”

Compared to Venice's fame, the hospitality industry here is simply poor.

Last night, he had been in a terrible hotel in Venice, with a scream waking him and Gal Gadot from their sleep at two o'clock in the middle of the night, followed by the loud slamming of doors, the creaking of windows in the wind, and the sound of moving furniture, one after another, like an eerie sonata......

After nearly two hours of tossing, Murphy had to change rooms.

In the two days he came to Venice, if it wasn't for another purpose, to create momentum for the film and make the people who had attacked him look good, Murphy might have left with the crew of "Focus" a long time ago.

In the past two days, including today's opening ceremony, the impression is very direct - the Venice Film Festival has really declined.

Not only Murphy, but many people who came to the festival lamented that the market was shrinking, the number of guests was shrinking, and the stars were dim...... The world's oldest film festival has encountered another dilemma, with several previous blows that have brought the Venice Film Festival to a stalemate or even closure, but the pain of recent years has been particularly real.

Of all the films that premiered or were released during the festival, the most sold tickets were "Spotlight" as the opening film, and the average pre-sale of ten screenings was close to one-fifth, which was really low enough in this era, but the pre-sales of other films were even worse, with an average of not even one-fifteenth of the pre-sales.

Murphy has been in contact with several reporters, and they lamented that the film is not so crowded, which is a good thing, but it just shows that the festival is not popular enough, and there will definitely be no full seats in the future, and there will always be rows of empty seats, which is a bit sad compared to Cannes, which is a bit sad compared to the full Cannes.

The Venice Film Festival has encountered a lot of troubles in recent years, Marco Muller stepped down, leaving behind a dilapidated building of the Cinema Palace, and the new owner Barbera preferred the artistry and purity of films, but happened to catch up with the rise of the Toronto Film Festival and the aftermath of the economic crisis in Europe.

In the run-up to the festival, there were rumours that Venice might be rescheduled to avoid Toronto, and even Corriere della Sera, Italy's mainstream media outlet, wrote an article pointing out that the number of registrations for the festival had plummeted......

The shrinking European market and the sluggish Italian film industry could not save Venice from declining, and it can be seen at the opening ceremony that the most popular are always Hollywood stars.

Hollywood movies are to blame for it all.

Since the 90s of the last century, the globalization of Hollywood films has made major film festivals, whether it be Venice, Cannes or Berlin, fail to maintain the youthful momentum of the last century.

The fading of the "Golden Lion" is obvious, and in the past 20 years, the Venice Film Festival has been the favorite starting point for Oscar seeders, and it is also the most important battlefield for major Hollywood studios, especially those with Olympic films, and many Oscar-winning films have used this place as the starting point for their long journey to the Olympics.

But this year's film festival is not what it used to be, taking this year's film festival as an example, in addition to the very topical "Focus", which has attracted much attention, other film lists that seem quite "cold" have been complained by countless people about being boring.

In the articles of the media of various countries, "the stars are bleak", "anticlimactic", and "awards are upset" have become the labels of the Venice Film Festival in recent years, although they are a bit harsh, but they are also appropriate.

Barbera, the head of the Venice Film Festival, has made it a priority for the film festival to explore films from the world's periphery and countries with no history of filmmaking, and at the beginning of his tenure, the Italian domestic media said, "Barbera is trying to separate the Venice Film Festival from Hollywood, and independent art may become a new feature of the Venice Film Festival." ”

This is also something that Murphy did not know before, he was too new to the Venice Film Festival.

Therefore, seeing that the Venice Film Festival has become more and more distant from Hollywood in recent years, the number of films with Hollywood backgrounds in Venice is decreasing, and it has not won several important awards at the Venice Film Festival for several years, Murphy also has great doubts about whether "Focus" can win the Golden Lion Award.

For example, in this kind of film festival, the personal will of the controller has a very obvious influence on the final award result.

In the past two days, Murphy has already understood that the reason why the Venice Film Festival agreed to "Spotlight" to participate in the competition unit and was selected as the opening film is the result of the decline of Catholic forces in modern society on the one hand, and on the other hand, the Venice Film Festival needs the topic and attraction brought by him and "Spotlight".

To put it bluntly, the organizers of the film festival want to use Murphy's fame to attract more people's attention.

However, Murphy also needed the Venice Film Festival as a stage for the nearby Vatican and the Holy See to see what they were doing.

In the words of Margot Robbie, countless Hollywood counterparts are waiting for Murphy to give Catholicism a good look at the vain attempt to invade Hollywood again!

Entering the Cinema Palace, Murphy and the crew quickly arrived in the screening hall, and there was a warm applause at the scene.

"Spotlight" is about to start screenings.

In the Vatican, in a sunny office, the elderly Pope Benedict XVI suddenly put down the pen in his hand and asked the person standing next to him, "Is the Venice Film Festival opening today?" ”

"Yes, Your Excellency." The middle-aged pastor looked at his watch, "The opening film should start showing." ”

Benedict XVI stood up, walked to the window, looked out at the small square, and said, "You are a public relations expert in the Vatican, and I ask you, could this be a film that has been falsified or poorly made?" ”

"No, it won't." The middle-aged pastor is honest, "The director of the film is Murphy Stanton, a person who has always only made fine movies, and the influence of each film after becoming famous is world-class, we ......"

He shook his head, "We shouldn't have extravagant expectations, I think we need to be prepared for the worst." ”

"I'm already at the Synod of Cardinals proposing to remove Márquez-Costello from the post of regional archbishop," Benedict XVI's eyes looked a little cloudy, "and he was transferred back to the Vatican to look at the library." ”