Chinese Entertainment: Academic Director

Chapter 401 Planting the flag
In 2001, after serving as the director of the Berlin Film Festival for 21 years, Swiss Moritz de Haderden retired, and Dieter Kosslick succeeded him as the new director of the festival.

Moritz truly retired after achieving great success.

When he first took office in 80, the Berlin Film Festival was facing internal and external troubles and almost went out of business.

The main reason was that the previous year's issue with "The Deer Hunter" led to a boycott of the film festival by socialist countries. After much effort, he successfully broke through the barriers in East Germany and repaired relations with the Soviet Union and Eastern European countries.

After more than 20 years of development, Moritz determined the current form of the Berlin Film Festival and established its status.

This has made the Berlin Film Festival one of the three major film festivals in Europe, and the Golden Bear Award one of the most prestigious international film awards.

In 2001, Dieter Kosslick took office and was handed over the Berlin Film Festival, which was at its peak.

However, this period also marked the last glorious chapter of the Berlin Film Festival, or rather, the three major European film festivals.

In recent years, as Hollywood has expanded globally, the Oscars have become the most influential film awards in reality, while the influence of the three major European awards has declined year by year.

In particular, in the last two years, even the Cannes Film Festival, which was once the most influential of the three major European film festivals, has begun to open its arms and use commercialization and embracing Hollywood to enhance its influence.

This is also a problem that the Venice Film Festival and the Berlin Film Festival have to face.

Everyone is employing their own unique strategies in an attempt to stabilize their declining influence year by year.

For example, this year, Dieter Koslick used three moves that he considered to be very clever.

First, they invited Cao Yang to bring his new film to the Berlin Film Festival. The fact that the film stars a kung fu superstar like Jackie Chan makes it even more interesting.

To be honest, before inviting Cao Yang, Dieter Koslick only thought that Cao Yang was the most influential director among young people in the world, without exception.

Cao Yang's arrival signifies increased attention from young people worldwide.

Jackie Chan's arrival signifies the attention he receives from his global fanbase.

However, Dieter Koslick did not expect that Cao Yang would give him another big surprise - with the global blockbuster of "Pirates of the Caribbean", Cao Yang's popularity and discussion were at their peak!
This was an absolutely fantastic surprise for Dieter Koslick.

Secondly, they invited renowned Hollywood director Martin Scorsese. Scorsese won the Academy Awards for Best Picture and Best Director in 06 for "The Departed." He and Leonardo DiCaprio are longtime collaborators, and Scorsese still has a significant influence.

In addition, Martin Scorsese's new film, a music documentary about the Rolling Stones, has brought all the "old guys" of the Rolling Stones to Berlin, just as Dieter Kosslick predicted.

This has inadvertently extended the attention and influence of the Berlin Film Festival, at least this year's festival, to the "elderly" demographic.

Third, Dieter Kosslick brought the Berlin Film Festival back to its traditional themes this year—politics and society.

There are two benefits to doing this.

The obvious benefit is that it allows the Berlin Film Festival to return to the "Berlin Film Festival" that people think it is.

The hidden benefit is that, under the pretext of politics and society, Cao Yang's "Love in a Seaside City" can not win the Golden Bear Award—no matter how well your film is made or how deeply you explore human nature, it doesn't fit the theme of the film festival.

If it doesn't fit the film festival theme, how can I give you the Golden Bear?
To be honest, Dieter Koslick did not want to give Cao Yang the Golden Bear. Even though he was under pressure from all over Europe, he never thought of trying to trick Cao Yang into not giving him the Golden Bear.

Unfortunately, Cao Yang isn't Zhang Yimou, nor is he one of the other directors who are just one short of achieving a Grand Slam.

Cao Yang's influence is truly immense.

He's not just influential in the arts and culture scene; he's also one of the most influential directors in Hollywood. That kind of influence is far greater than that of directors who only dabble in the arts and culture world.

Dieter Kosslick, or rather, one of the three great European directors who dare to take on art-house films.

But it's really difficult for them to handle a director like Cao Yang, who has a standing in the world of arts and culture, a huge influence in Hollywood, and is backed by a major power.

In particular, Cao Yang is good at promoting people and is a "living father" to many actors.

How do you handle a director who is so well-rounded in almost every aspect?

Dieter Kosslick had a good plan: to deal with each festival as it comes, first "grab" Cao Yang, and use Cao Yang's influence to increase the Berlin Film Festival's visibility as much as possible.

He plans to wait another ten or eight years, until the Berlin Film Festival maintains its popularity, and then "crown" Cao Yang, making him the fourth Grand Slam director in the world.

The day before, he would present Cao Yang with the Golden Bear Award, and the next day he would announce his resignation from a series of positions at the Berlin Film Festival, bearing the pressure alone.

If I can maintain or even enhance the influence of the Berlin Film Festival, I will have lived up to my position.

Just like Moritz!
Moritz has always been Dieter Kosslick's idol and the goal he wants to surpass.

pity.

The idea is good.

But after walking the red carpet with Cao Yang, Dieter Koslick is not in a good mood.

Even during backstage interviews, she seemed somewhat absent-minded, offering only a few perfunctory words before returning to her office alone.

Cao Yang's words made him think more deeply.

If Cao Yang is not satisfied with this year's Berlin Film Festival, and he only goes to the Venice and Cannes Film Festivals from now on, and keeps winning awards at those two festivals, then Berlin will be truly embarrassed.

Actually, none of these things are embarrassing.

The more awards Cao Yang wins in Venice and Cannes, the deeper Berlin will be nailed to the pillar of shame—people will wonder, why doesn't Cao Yang, such an influential director who has won numerous awards in Venice and Cannes, go to Berlin?

Yes, there must be something wrong in Berlin!
This is still the ideal scenario where Cao Yang doesn't use his influence to prevent those big stars from attending the Berlin Film Festival.

Never underestimate the influence of a world-class director who has won numerous awards, achieved great box office success, and is also adept at promoting talent.

If Cao Yang makes that statement, I believe many Hollywood actors will no longer come to Berlin in order to have the opportunity to work with him.

At least as long as Cao Yang's influence remains, this kind of thing is bound to happen—compared to the Oscars, Hollywood actors don't care much about the three major European cinemas, so it's really not worth offending Cao Yang for the sake of the three major European cinemas.

As for Berlin, with Hollywood's growing influence, it has also begun to compromise with Hollywood.

At this film festival alone, including the opening and closing films, the United States had the most films nominated, with eight films, accounting for almost a third of the total.

What would happen if Hollywood stars didn't come?
Most importantly, after Cao Yang didn't come to Berlin, will Venice and Cannes boycott him or cater to him?
Dieter Kosslick can say with certainty that he will cater to them and continue to shower them with awards, making Berlin look bad.

If this could significantly diminish Berlin's credibility and prevent it from competing with Venice and Cannes, that would be ideal.

Dieter Kosslick knows all too well what Venice and Cannes are thinking, because that's exactly what he's thinking.

As a competitor, if we don't step on them, are we just going to wait for them to ride roughshod over us?

Dieter Koslick watched "The Seaside Town" specifically, and more than once.

This film is of extremely high quality, whether it is the actors' performances, the director's filming techniques and cinematic language, or the storytelling and exploration of human nature.

It's fine if the film's quality is mediocre and doesn't meet the requirements for the Golden Bear.

The key issue is that this film is eligible to compete for the Golden Bear, which makes things difficult.

What if Cao Yang is not satisfied with this year's Berlin Film Festival, and he decides to give up on the Grand Slam and never come to Berlin again, instead only going to Cannes and Venice?
How to do?
How can we satisfy Cao Yang?
Difficult.

At this moment, Dieter Kosslick desperately hoped that the three major European filmmakers could unite and stand together, so that they could be fearless... Alas, even if they were united, it would be difficult to deal with an all-around director like Cao Yang, who could make profound art films, blockbuster commercial films, and promote actors.

Damn it, how did the film industry produce such a freak as Cao Yang?

On February 16, "Love in the Seaside City" premiered.

To show his respect for the film, Dieter Kosslick held the premiere at the Palais des Festivals and personally brought almost all of the official high-ranking officials with him, giving Cao Yang a great deal of face.

The red carpet in front of the Palais des Festivals was almost as long as the red carpet at the film festival's opening ceremony, and it was packed with guests and media.

Those who knew it was the film premiere; those who didn't might have thought the film festival's closing ceremony and awards ceremony had been held ahead of schedule.

"This lineup is comparable to that of an awards ceremony."

Ren Dahua looked at this extremely exaggerated scene. He was a man of many experience, but he still couldn't help but say something to Du Qifeng next to him.

Du Qifeng's eyes were full of envy. Look at the guests. It can be said that almost all the guests who walked the red carpet at the opening ceremony a few days ago are here today.

This includes the festival's official leaders and the six members of the jury.

What are big brands?

What is influence?
What makes a great director?
This is!
that's!
This is what a man should do!

pity.

Du Qifeng sighed inwardly. He might be able to gather big names in Hong Kong, but outside of that small territory, it wouldn't be very effective, let alone at the three major European film festivals.

Thinking back to the premiere of his film "Sparrow" on the 12th, if Cao Yang hadn't brought Cheng Long along, the biggest stars on the red carpet would probably have been the film's lead actor, Ren Dahua, and judge Shu Qi.

As for other guests, there are some, but very few.

Even Wang Xiaoshuai and the crew of "Left Right" didn't come.

Of course, it might be because Du Qifeng didn't attend the premiere of Wang Xiaoshuai's "Left Right" on the 9th.

However, what made Du Qifeng uncomfortable was that he saw in the news that when Wang Xiaoshuai's "Left Right" premiered, the film festival president Dieter Kosslick and the jury president Costa Gavras also attended.

At the premiere of his film "Sparrow," neither Dieter Koslick nor the jury president attended; only Shu Qi represented the jury.

At this moment, Du Qifeng realized that perhaps, maybe, possibly... he was not as important as Wang Xiaoshuai in the eyes of the Berlin Film Festival, nor did he have as much face as Wang Xiaoshuai.

As for Cao Yang...

Du Qifeng glanced once more at the premiere, which resembled an awards ceremony, and thought, "Forget it, there's no need to compare."

We're all Chinese, there's no need to compare ourselves to others. That's all, being happy is the most important thing.

On June 17, local time in Berlin (early morning of June 18 in Beijing), the closing ceremony and awards ceremony of the 58th Berlin International Film Festival officially began.

Yang Mi and Da Tiantian walked the closing ceremony red carpet again, which made them both very happy, because being able to walk the red carpet at the awards ceremony meant that "Love in the Seaside City" had received a notice to stay.

As far as they knew, the crew of director Wang Xiaoshuai's "Left Right" had also received the notice, but the famous Hong Kong director Du Qifeng had not received the notice to stay.

Da Tian Tian was simply happy.

Big Mimi felt a mixture of joy and regret.

She still remembered what Li Xiaowan had told her, and she had made up her mind to make good use of this opportunity. Whether she could avoid taking ten years of detours depended on this trip to Berlin.

However, when he arrived in Berlin, he discovered that things were not so simple.

Director Cao is practically invited to banquets every day. He's constantly attending parties, gatherings, and private dinners. He's either going to a banquet or on his way to one. How could she possibly have a chance to get close to him?

in the country, she only knew that Director Cao was famous and was one of the top directors in the country.

As for his exact influence, all I know is that his agency boss gives him face, so his influence is probably similar to that of Director Zhang, Director Chen, and Director Feng.
Only by going abroad can one truly feel how influential Director Cao is.

In Yang Mi's opinion, Hong Kong director Du Qifeng is a great director who is no less than Zhang and Chen, and his influence is probably about the same as that of Cao.

However, her experiences in Berlin over the past few days made her suddenly realize that this was not just similar, but quite different!
How much exactly is the difference?

"The Berlin Film Festival closing ceremony red carpet wasn't very impressive either; it was almost the same as our film premiere yesterday."

Yang Mi raised the corners of her mouth and joked with Da Tian Tian next to her.

Da Tiantian thought about it seriously for a moment, then nodded seriously and replied with wide eyes, "I really didn't notice until you pointed it out. Now that I think about it, what you said makes a lot of sense."

Then, she said with some doubt, "Maybe Cannes would be better? Isn't Cannes supposed to have more influence than Venice and Berlin?"

Yang Mi chuckled inwardly, thinking, "You actually believed what I said?"

How naive.

I was saying that Caoyang has a lot of influence, didn't you realize that?

Okay, it's actually better that she didn't realize it. Such an innocent girl would be a good friend.

Do you think "Love in a Seaside City" will win an award tonight?

"Da Tian Tian asked softly."

Yang Mi glanced at Da Tiantian. Isn't this obvious? Don't you know that receiving the notice to stay means you're guaranteed a prize?

“You’re sure to win an award. In fact, I think you have the best chance of winning Best New Actress. Your performance in the movie was really good.”

Yes, it was a natural performance; there wasn't a trace of acting in it at all. It was truly "excellent."

"is it?"

Da Tiantian's eyes lit up, and she asked happily.

Then she shook her head and said seriously, "Not necessarily. I remember being scolded by Cao Yang many times during filming, and I kept having to do retakes. It was only after I switched roles with you and played the singer that I barely passed the scene."

I think my performance was just average, and I might not win Best New Actress. Zhu Yilong, on the other hand, acted quite well; he might even win.

Yang Mi rolled her eyes. "Big sister, I was just saying it casually. Don't you know that the Best New Actor award isn't a regular award at film festivals? It doesn't exist most years, okay?"

You actually believe there's such an award this year?

Haha, even if this award were created this year, do you really think you have a chance of winning it?

Ha, I don't believe it. If you can win this award, I dare to knock on Director Cao's door tonight, you believe me?

And they wouldn't even let Director Cao take responsibility.

Meanwhile, the film festival awards ceremony officially began, and the two newbies sat up straight with serious expressions.

(End of this chapter)