Entertainment: I am the peak

Chapter 728 Dialogue between Masters
Sure enough, Huayi's stock price started to fall as soon as the market opened the next day.

Huayi was already the company with the lowest market value among the top five private film companies in China. This drop has pushed it out of the top five, and its market value is now lower than that of Lianrui.

However, Huayi still has not responded to public opinion.

Whether Huayi Brothers survives or not is not the main issue; the key point is that this public opinion crisis has affected almost all domestic film and television media stocks.

Feng Xiaogang is, after all, one of the top directors in China. Now, there are reports of his arrest and that the authorities are taking this opportunity to rectify the financial and tax issues in the film and television industry. This will inevitably affect investors' confidence in the film and television sector.

The stock prices of various film and television companies all fell to varying degrees on the first trading day of September.

Fortunately, it is still within a controllable range and has not caused market panic.

Li Qiutang is currently in Xidu attending the new Changchun Film Festival.

Under the leadership of the new team, the Changchun Film Festival is now thriving. The prestige of the Golden Deer Awards may still need time to be rebuilt, but the Golden Deer Project Market has made a name for itself. This year's Golden Deer Project Market attracted more than 300 project applications, and even Chinese-language films from Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore and Malaysia participated, which is something that the committee is happy to see.

This year, Deer Jet Ventures had to adapt to the changing circumstances and expand the number of shortlisted projects, allowing more than 40 projects to enter the final selection roadshow.

Li Qiutang came to the Changchun Film Festival mainly to hold the first domestic screening of "Marriage Story" and to have a discussion with Hirokazu Kore-eda.

The former was something he had promised the organizing committee long ago. Actually, the Shanghai International Film Festival was a better platform, but wasn't he prioritizing his own?

The Shanghai International Film Festival successfully invited "Shoplifters" to screen, but they couldn't get Hirokazu Kore-eda himself to come; Li Qiutang did.

Therefore, the dialogue between Li Qiutang and Hirokazu Kore-eda was the most popular event at this year's Changchun Film Festival.

Many media professionals asked Li Qiutang for votes, but the problem was, Li Qiutang didn't have any votes either!

The organizing committee did indeed hide more than a hundred tickets beforehand, but the demand for the event was so high that the organizing committee had no choice but to release all of them.

The only way for Li Qiutang to bring people in was to bring herself in on-site.

The venue was packed. On stage, Li Qiutang acted as the temporary host. After a brief opening, she introduced "Shoplifters" and then Hirokazu Kore-eda made his appearance.

The applause was so loud it felt like it was going to lift the ceiling off. To put it bluntly, seeing this dialogue between the two directors on a small platform like the Changchun Film Festival was definitely worth the ticket price.

The two directors shook hands, sat around a round table, and chatted.

Li Qiutang doesn't understand Japanese, and Hirokazu Kore-eda doesn't speak Chinese, so their communication heavily relied on translators. However, this did not prevent the two directors from having a lively dialogue with the more than 1,000 audience members present.

These two are truly outspoken. Both didn't hold back in praising their rival Lee Chang-dong's "Burning," saying the film deserved awards.

“I didn’t expect that ‘Burning’ would only win the FIPRESCI Critics’ Award,” Hirokazu Kore-eda said.

Li Qiutang also likes "Burning" very much, but if you look for reasons in the result, Li Qiutang would say: "It may be because the rhythm of "Burning" is problematic."

Hirokazu Kore-eda has never served as a Cannes jury member, but Li Qiutang has worked as a jury member in the Cannes main competition, so he does know some things.

The audience today is really lucky; where else can you hear something like this?

“The Palme d'Or tends to select works that achieve a high degree of harmony and unity in terms of theme, narrative, and cinematic language. The more austere, abstract, and suspenseful narrative style of ‘Burning’ may not be considered perfect by the judges,” Li Qiutang said.

"The slow narrative pace and the large amount of blank space in 'Burning' is also a great test for the audience."

Speaking of this, Hirokazu Kore-eda aptly mentioned "Marriage Story." Li Qiutang frankly stated today, "Marriage Story is also not perfect. The narrative pace is also slow, there are a lot of blank spaces, and like 'Burning,' it leads to a tragic ending." However, as a Japanese director, Kore-eda can understand the subtlety and blank spaces in "Marriage Story," praising it as a film that deeply analyzes marriage and family relationships.

However, Li Qiutang also admitted: "This subject matter is too traditional and cannot provide the judges with fresh and exciting content."

The two then discussed the current trend of "seeking the bizarre" and "seeking the new" in the international film industry.

"Or rather, all artistic works are now seeking the bizarre. Artists no longer focus on the lives of ordinary people. Literature, film, and art are all focusing on marginalized groups, as if your protagonist cannot enter the international market if they are not from a marginalized group."

Hirokazu Kore-eda shares this sentiment, but he bluntly states, "Because ordinary people's lives are so common, they don't need artists to express them; audiences can see them everywhere."

This statement was irrefutable, and Li Qiutang was speechless.

There was no fixed theme for this discussion; the two directors simply spoke their minds.

Li Qiutang knew that many audience members were there for Hirokazu Kore-eda, after all, he had just won the Palme d'Or and was much more famous in the arts than she was. Li Qiutang understood this, so she encouraged Kore-eda to speak more.

Hirokazu Kore-eda makes no secret of the fact that he is the son of director Hou Xiaoxian.

Hou Xiaoxian's influence on Asian filmmakers is undeniable. Li Qiutang also said, "Who wouldn't admire Hou Xiaoxian?" He is very familiar with Hou Xiaoxian's works, among which his favorites are of course "A City of Sadness" and "Dust in the Wind".

Speaking of her film learning journey, Li Qiutang said that she prefers another Taiwanese director, Yang Dechang, but when asked which director is her godfather in filmmaking, Li Qiutang really can't say.

The two directors, one specializing in art films and a regular at international film festivals, and the other primarily making commercial genre films and having created box office miracles, have sparked quite a few interesting exchanges during their interactions.

For example, both Li Qiutang and Hirokazu Kore-eda revealed their respective plans for new films.

Hirokazu Kore-eda said he is preparing a French-language film based on a stage play he wrote in his early years, and filming will begin this year.

Li Qiutang then brought out the idea of ​​a journalist exposing the dark side of society that she had suddenly thought of in Cannes, saying that she wanted to try realism: "I thought of a story about a female journalist, but it's just an idea, there's no framework or characters yet, and I don't know if it can be made." Li Qiutang was just talking big at the time and making a promise to Fan Bingbing, but after thinking about it, she felt that such a subject matter was feasible, so she really started to conceive and prepare.

The two talked for 40 minutes, and then the time was given to the audience for questions.

Translation is really time-consuming. The two of them only answered four audience questions on stage before the event was over.

Li Qiutang said, "Because of time constraints, shall we answer one last question?"

A female audience member managed to ask a question: "I'd like to ask Director Hirokazu Kore-eda, how do you work with child actors, and how do you get them to meet your filming requirements?"

Hirokazu Kore-eda listened blankly to the translation in his earphones, and remained stunned for a few seconds after it ended, not noticing that Li Qiutang was trying hard to suppress her laughter.

Hirokazu Kore-eda has probably talked about this issue to death!

Bong Joon-ho asked him this question, as did Lee Choo-tang, and at least 10 other directors and producers.

Hirokazu Kore-eda looked helpless and wiped his face with his hand, which drew laughter from the audience.

Then he shared his method with the audience again.

…………

(End of this chapter)