The first rays of the morning sun are shining in the snow-covered city of Park, the chilling air slowly fades in the golden light, and the chirping and playful sounds unveil another lively day of the Sundance Film Festival.

Lance still gets up at eight o'clock in the morning as usual, in preparation for the premiere of "Whale Rider". After showering, don a light blue shirt with vertical stripes, and head to the restaurant on the third floor of the hotel to prepare for your breakfast. Once seated, the waiter came over and said, "Good morning, Mr. Strello, do you need coffee or milk?" ”

"Yes, please give me a cup of black coffee, thank you." Lance smiled and said, "Then give me two croissants, plus an omelette, five ripe." ”

"The blueberry cheesecake is very fresh today, do you need it?" The waiter politely made a recommendation, and Lance smiled and nodded, "Then give me a corner." ”

The waiter returned with a pot of black coffee and a stack of brand-new newspapers scented with ink. Lance picked three newspapers from them—the Salt Lake City Tribune, the Denver Post, and the Los Angeles Times—and even felt the residual temperature on the surface of the newspapers with an iron, and carefully poured milk and sugar cubes into the black coffee before he began to flip through the papers.

The breakfast hall was soon lively, and the people attending the Sundance Film Festival in Salt Lake City were getting up one after another to restock their energy for today's party.

Percy walked briskly into the dining room, and saw the hall that was almost full, but after just scanning the circle, he easily found Lance's location, and strode over. Then I heard Jonathan Karsh's brisk voice, "I've heard at least five people recommend me, so, trust me, I'll definitely be going to see it this afternoon." The director of "My Flesh" seemed to be in a good mood, and Jonathan also noticed Percy's approach, so he politely said hello to Lance, "I'll talk to you after I'm done", and then left straight away.

Percy saw the newspaper spread out on Lance's table, and the croissant crumbs on the plate next to him, and couldn't help but feel a little weak, "You know the house program is coming out today, right?" I'm so nervous that I'm sick to my stomach, and you're still eating breakfast here! Percy pulled out a chair at the table and sat down, babbling, "God, it's terrible that everyone's eyes are on 'Whale Rider' today, and our movies seem to be a thing of the past......"

Lance didn't interrupt Percy, cut a piece of cheesecake with a fork, and put it in his mouth, feeling the delicate and soft touch, and the corners of his mouth showed a satisfied happiness. Finally, when Percy finally stopped, he raised his gaze and said, "This is the film festival, and we're not the only films in the competition." ”

On top of the film festival, there will be new films released every day, and every crew will come to attend with great ambitions, and the media battle is naturally surging, so it is inevitable that the topics will be updated every day. However, the media is not the only way to find out, and Lance's conversation with Jonathan has also revealed a lot of information - and you can feel that among independent directors, there is a strong interest in the "City of God".

At a moment like this, nervousness doesn't help anything, it only makes things more confusing, and Lance knows all too well about that. However, Lance was also nervous, which is human nature, but he didn't show it. A cup of coffee with a piece of cheesecake really helped.

Satisfied, he put down the fork and wiped the corners of his mouth with a square scarf, the slow and unhurried movements made Percy's face full of depression, and he blocked his chest in one breath, and there was no way to vent it. Lance looked up and saw Percy's feeble expression, and smiled dumbly, "So, what about the house book?" ”

Percy originally wanted to whet Lance's appetite, but under Lance's gaze, he lasted less than two seconds before he was defeated, took out the official Sundance Film Festival house book from his briefcase, and handed it to Lance.

Taking over the house catalogue, Lance did not immediately start reading, but carefully read the table of contents. For ordinary people, the house catalogue is one of the ways to learn about the festival; But for professionals, the catalogue offers more information, such as emerging directors to watch, works of commercial value, and important people who come to the festival.

Lance noticed a name, Brad-Grey. Here's an interview titled "Paramount Pictures Attends Sundance for the First Time."

If Lance remembers correctly, the current helm of Paramount Pictures is Sherry-Lansing, a wise and resolute woman who led Paramount to a decade of revival in the nineties, but in the twenty-first century, Paramount fell into a difficult situation again, and in 2005 Shirley stepped down and was replaced by Brad, who had no experience at the helm of a film company. The young and vigorous Brad leads Paramount back to glory.

Brad's biggest overhaul of Paramount was the establishment of an international distribution channel for independent films, and the emphasis on the right to adapt novels.

Perhaps, the right to issue the "City of God" can make a breakthrough with Brad.

Seeing that Lance was lost in his thoughts and didn't flip through the house book for a long time, Percy finally couldn't hold back anymore and blurted out directly, "Our movie got a 3.5 point positive review!" At the moment, it is only 3.6 points behind 'Shining America'! The joy and excitement between the eyebrows are unconcealed, and you can clearly feel the frenzy in his heart.

The Sundance Film Festival's rating system is a four-point scale out of four, and generally more than three points can be said to be a work that has been unanimously affirmed by film critics.

Lance raised his head, and then he saw Percy's extremely excited eyebrows, and the smile on the corner of his mouth bloomed in an instant, "We made it." The words were so simple that they hid so many intricacies that Lance's brain went blank for a second.

In this second, he didn't need to think about the showdown with Diorama Pictures, the betrayal of Ryan and George, the current weakness and hardships of Chaos Pictures, the future distribution of "City of God", and the next obstacles and developments.

He was simply happy, simply happy that his directorial debut, his screenwriting debut had been recognized—from the audience and from the critics, simply because he had spent so much effort to produce the work that had been praised, and simply because he had won applause as an artistic creator.

This happiness is so simple, so pure, so beautiful.

It didn't take much effort to open the house magazine, and I saw the comments on the "City of God", which was obviously the highlight of today's house magazine, occupying two whole pages. On the left is the black headline "City of God", and just to the right of the headline, the huge red font "3.5/4" immediately catches the eye, which means that in a four-point rating system, after more than a dozen media outlets rated it, "City of God" received an average score of 3.5 - as Percy said.

If you don't make a sound, it's a blockbuster. Lance almost came out of nowhere on the Sundance stage!

On the left is the official film review of the Sundance Film Festival, with the title "Poetic Modern Epic, Beautiful Prose of Sadness and Despair, Magnificent Vintage Oil Painting" with a large and conspicuous title, plus the subtitle "A Samba Rhapsody from Lancelot Strello", and in the lower right corner you can see the official rating of Sundance, "4/4".

They actually gave an incredible perfect score!

"It's almost impossible to adapt a successful story, but the fledgling Lancelot Strello is perfectly presented in front of us, with a realistic and sharp shooting technique, and the rapid switching of the camera is like a dagger that has been sharpened repeatedly. Neatly, crisply, directly, and decisively, every detail and whole is presented, without the slightest drag, the real scene is immersive, but it stops, leaving endless space for thinking, bringing this city of God that is real to cruel, cruel to terrible, terrible to ridiculous, ridiculous to ridiculous, and ridiculous to the absurd.

It's hard to imagine that this is just the first work of Lancelot as a director and screenwriter, combining a crisp documentary technique with a dramatic and satirical way of interpretation, a perfect fusion of entertainment and artistic reflection, a mature and sophisticated approach, just the right amount of discussion and excavation, and a distinctive style of footage...... Lancelot shows us what a genius is all about.

This is a very special film, in which any character can be taken out and made into a good movie, but Lancelot jumps out of the Hollywood routine of seeing the big from the small, and abandons the mode of moving the audience with the humanity of the individual, he shows the audience a ukiyo-e of a Beat Latin American slum, where everyone lives in impermanence and disorder, and everyone's story is an organic composition of the whole story, cleverly and interestingly connected.

However, the finished product we see does not make the individual's personality disappear because of the overall display, Benny who is naturally romantic, Handsome Ned, who pursues ordinary, Xiaobawang, who has a strong will to power, and A Cannon who is naturally timid but determined...... Characters appear vividly and vividly, staging their own stories.

The 'City of God' is a city favored by God, a city abandoned by God, or a city forgotten by God. This is what Lancelot left us to think. ”

As you can imagine, the Sundance Film Festival's official house catalogue has used up almost all the praise to give praise to "City of God", and they believe that the film is the best work since Sundance opened this year, even better than "Shining America", so they gave the only official perfect score so far, and made their position clear and unequivocal.

And it's clearly not just Sundance himself who is thinking about it.

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