On the third day of the Venice Film Festival, the organizing committee began to screen every shortlisted film, and "Friends", which unexpectedly won the favor of the Venice Film Organizing Committee, was also qualified for screening.

The original script of the movie "Friends" was adapted by Lin Xiaozhi according to his memory, a black humor movie called "Shallow Grave" in the United Kingdom, and its own unique black humor and reflection on interests and friendship and even love have made it a lot more artistic, and it is not an exaggeration to say that it is an art film. So when he started filming this movie, Lin Xiaozhi didn't expect "Shallow Grave" to sell well in Hong Kong, and the local city did not lose money, and the foreign market, especially Europe and the United States, was the main battlefield of "Friends" in his vision.

The week-long screening of "Friends" was arranged in a movie theater in Italy called Wesker. This is a small cinema, of course, this so-called small cinema is only relative to the European cinema standard, with three screening halls and more than 300 seats, if it is placed in Hong Kong, it has reached the scale of 'medium-sized, or even 'large-scale'. It can be seen that the strength of Hong Kong's academy business is still not comparable with that of Europe.

On the first day of the screening of "Friends", the attendance rate was a little disappointing for New Asia and his party. The average attendance rate is only about 20%, which is about the same as "Mong Kok Carmen" of Ying Zhijie. But compared to the red sorghum in the mainland, "City of Sadness" from Taiwan, and another movie "Paradise Cinema" with a good reputation are much worse.

The average attendance rate of "Red Sorghum" is as high as about 30 percent, and "City of Sadness" is slightly higher than it, about 40 percent. "Cinema Paradiso" was named the most likely film to win the Golden Lion this year by the European media after it was announced to participate in the Venice Film Festival, with an attendance rate of nearly 70%, which shows its popularity. Moreover, Donatore, the director of "Cinema Paradiso", is still Italian, and the vast majority of the judges in the Venice Film Festival jury are from Italy, so it is difficult to say that this year's Venice Film Festival will not expose any local protectionism

The attendance rate and word-of-mouth on the first day of the film festival test screening are generally not high, but New Asia and his party are too concerned. The Venice Film Festival will last up to two weeks, in which in order to ensure that each shortlisted film can get wider publicity, so this preview screening will last up to a week, and the organizing committee will also spend a week listening to the audience's reputation and film critics. Of course, these are only used as an important reference, in fact, after the work was submitted to the organizing committee of the film festival, a professional team composed of more than a dozen well-known directors and screenwriters from all over Europe began to review the work.

The attendance rate on the second day did not increase much, the average attendance rate was about two or three percent, but there were more film critics and distributors, it seems that the word-of-mouth spread of the previous day was quite good, to the slight joy of Xinya and his party, on this day, a film company from West Germany, which is also a West German film giant, Wufa Film Company, took the initiative to contact Zheng Fei, the distribution manager of New Asia, and tentatively proposed to buy out the European distribution rights of their "Friend" with RU million German marks.

89 is the strongest year for West Germany's economy, the world's third largest economic power, the currency is also very strong, RU million German marks are equivalent to nearly 5 million Hong Kong dollars, although at the Venice Film Festival, there have been several films that have been bought out for millions of pounds or dollars in a country's distribution rights, the price of "Friends" is really not high. However, this is exciting good news for New Asia, and it also proves the correctness of Lin Xiaozhi's main visit to Europe to participate in the Venice International Film Festival. Without their trip to Europe, the nearly HK$5 million in foreign income would have been almost equivalent to passing by.

Xinya is still not in a hurry to reply to Wufa Film Company's sky-high buyout, just two days after the test screening, a filmmaker offered such a price, which made Xinya excited at the same time, but also once again felt that European and American distributors are not bad money. In Europe and the United States, some distributors often spend millions of dollars or pounds to buy out the distribution of some small-budget films, and even do not hesitate to spend three or four hundred, four or five million dollars or pounds in banknotes, and buy out some film rights that they like at a high price and think that they will definitely sell well after distribution.

Europe and the United States are the most economically developed regions in the world, and they are also the regions with the strongest sense of legitimacy among the people and governments in the world. Because of this, a film can not only be released on videotapes and screened in cooperation with TV stations, but also sell more peripheral rights when it is published. For example, novel adaptation, comic reverse adaptation, object, clothing publishing, and so on.

Facts have once again proved that Lin Xiaozhi's choice is correct. Ye Weixin has enough talent, and has participated in the filming of many movies, and has the full support of a film company behind him, so the "Friend" born in his hands is not half worse than the "Shallow Grave" in Lin Xiaozhi's memory. The film's rich black humor almost scratched the itch of the Venice Film Festival, which focuses on literary films, and with the increase in screening days, more and more people entered the Wesker Cinema to enjoy "Friends", especially not many reporters and film critics with badges entered the theater to watch the test screening.

As one of the three major film festivals in the world, even the Venice Film Festival, which is a benchmark for the supremacy of art, is inseparable from business and transactions. Like the Cannes Film Festival and the Berlin Film Festival, the Venice Film Festival is also the world's largest film rights trading event.

Behind the often unknown scenes, there is often the treacherous and coppery smell of merchants, and no one will inevitably have to deal with publishers, but they must not be trusted for their words. Here, every sentence is indisputable, and everyone is talking and laughing in deception and being deceived.

Of course, as the owner of a film company, Lin Xiaozhi already has the capital to manipulate behind the scenes. Zheng Fei, the distribution manager of New Asia's general distribution, has been pushed to the front desk by him in the past few days, and he has staged deceitful confrontations with other film companies at cocktail parties every day.

Until the seven-day test screening was on the verge of ending, the copyright of the movie "Friends" that New Asia brought to participate in the competition was still not sold, not only their New Asia, but even Deng Guangrong's Ying Zhijie Company, Wang Jiawei, who experienced the Cannes Film Festival at the beginning of the year, had already reminded Deng Guangrong that the trade fair of this kind of film festival always does not reach its climax until after the award ceremony, and the earlier the price is offered, the more it means that the parties have no confidence in their films. Showing such emotions, not to mention wanting to sell, that is, the publisher may not be willing to buy yet.

In the days leading up to the test screening, there was news that some of the so-called "European Human Rights Organizations, Members, Make a Stir About Red Sorghum" from France and Italy screened theaters, although the organizing committee and the Venice police immediately intervened to quell the riots, but the theaters in charge of screening Red Sorghum were reluctant to continue showing this evil film that was slandered as coming from an evil red country because of the loss of some property. was forced to end the test screening after less than five days of release, and this farce made Zhang Yimou and his party, who came from the mainland to participate in this Venice Film Festival, very ugly.

Not surprisingly, this year's 'Golden Lion Award, one of the favorites Red Sorghum" will be completely out of chance with this year's Golden Lion Award.

On September 9th, the Venice Film Festival, which lasted for more than ten days, finally ushered in an exciting awards ceremony. Compared with the star-studded opening, there were many European superstars and well-known directors and film talents who came on this day, and there were almost no Chinese media who paid attention to the European film industry in the eighties and nineties, and a small number of Chinese such as Lin Xiaozhi suddenly lost their attention completely in front of a large number of European and American stars. The European media is still very proud, although in the contest with the Yankees, European films lost and collapsed, but the media can still see the words "the birthplace of film", "the germination of film art was born in Europe, and so on", although in the past two decades, the booming Hong Kong film has become the only flower in the world that can not be covered up by American films in some areas.

This year's Venice Film Festival is both gratifying and regrettable.

It is gratifying that "Cinema Paradiso", which is the favorite of this year's Golden Lion Award and the director himself is Italian, won almost nothing at this Venice Film Festival, and only received a special recommendation from a jury that is not salty or light. And "Cinema Paradiso" was a blockbuster at this year's Cannes Film Festival, but it failed at the film festival held in its own country, which proves the fairness of the Venice Film Festival to some extent.

The Silver Lion was won by Portugal's "Memories of the Yellow House" and Japan's "Death of a Tea Ceremony Master", and the best director was taken home by the young French director DaIum.

Regrettably, this year's Venice Film Festival also seems to have been affected by the recent riots of human rights organizations, which have taken on some political overtones. Four films from China, "Red Sorghum from the Mainland" and "Mong Kok Carmen" in Hong Kong, all found nothing. New Asia's "Friend" also only received a dispensable 'consolation prize, that is, a so-called special recommendation from the jury. On the contrary, it was "City of Sadness" from Taiwan Province that unexpectedly won the Golden Lion Award at this year's Venice Film Festival, which made people unspeakably uncomfortable.

The particularity of Chinese mainland and Taiwan Province is one, and after the storm on the mainland blew this year, it seems that the entire Western world has put on a pair of colored glasses on top of the colored eyes of China. Lin Xiaozhi has seen "City of Sadness", and he also admits that making this kind of film with a strong artistic nature, the filmmakers in Taiwan are very good at it. But there are too many good movies participating in the Venice Film Festival this year, "The Last Emperor" and "Cinema Paradiso" are in front, and "City of Sadness" can win the Golden Lion Award.

After the award ceremony, the Venice Film Festival did not announce the end, on the contrary, there are still three days left in the film festival, entering the most lively and coppery big trading period, the dozens of films that were fortunate to be shortlisted for this year's Venice Film Festival followed the more than 100 films from all over the world to participate in the Venice Film Festival's self-service screening, have become the prey of nearly 1,000 distributors from all over the world. The film that set the highest selling price in Venice this year was "The Old Pasture" from the fairytale kingdom of Denmark, which was bought out by the deep-pocketed Britons for a whopping £1.9 million.

"City of Sadness", which won this year's Golden Lion Award, was the first to be sold to the Germans for 1 million marks by the Taiwanese Yankees, and soon fell into regret.

Because the two films that won this year's Silver Lion Award, "Memories of the Yellow House" and "The Death of a Tea Ceremony Master", were bought out for $1.6 million and 6.4 million francs respectively, and the prices were much higher than that of "City of Sadness". In particular, "Memories of the Yellow House" from Portugal costs almost three times as much as "City of Sadness".

"Mong Kok Carmen" and "Red Sorghum" could only miss this feast because it sold out early in the morning. Xinya's "Friend" has won the favor of many critics and distributors due to its strong dark comedy overtones, and even Wufa Film Company has increased its initial offer from the initial 700,000 marks all the way to 1.35 million marks, which is slightly higher than the "City of Sadness" they bought out. Obviously, although the Germans attach importance to literary films, they are not dislike commercial films, and the black comedy "Friends" has also fascinated the German film giant and distributor, and has offered a not low price.

However, because another British publisher also came to the door at the same time, and the price offered was gradually catching up with the Germans, New Asia was not in a hurry to sell, and the two sides talked together.