I'm almost a Muggle

There is still half an hour until 19:15, and "Massage" has never been watched by anyone, but slowly it has attracted an audience of one day.

Some even exited from the screening room next door.

It was impossible to fill the house, but it was still 70% to 80% full, and there were a full 200 people.

Unless it is a local Italian movie or a North American movie, it will be difficult to achieve such an attendance rate.

One on the first day, one at noon on the second day, and one in the evening.

Lin Dong bought a phone card.

Used to surf the Internet and watch film festival audiences and related media evaluate the film.

A journalist from Berlin was dissatisfied with the movie's too many viewpoints and multiple character narratives, which resulted in a messy plot. He said he didn't like "Massage".

This is indeed a problem.

In an interview, Lin Dong said that he was one of the leading actors.

This is definitely not a self-effacing statement.

A movie fan from France said: "This is a movie that focuses on people on the margins of society. It is not about inner deficiencies - it is generally believed that the minds of blind people are as sound as those of normal people, and they are alienated from the world just because they cannot have vision."

A real divide is framed.”

A local Italian media analyzed it from another perspective: "This time in Chinese movies, we can see more violent elements - more cruel than the previous ones. The cinema is showing pony cutting throat and Doctor Wang cutting.

While he was watching, the audience next to him covered his eyes.

And the herring's performance is more vivid than we've seen before.

Obviously, this gives Chinese films more space to show a richer world of blind people, so I was very shocked when I saw "Massage" because I didn't expect that the world of blind people is like this."

In terms of quantity, there are a lot of comments.

The media and audiences who watched the movie more or less wrote something and posted it.

The reputation is not great, but it is above the standard.

But there was still a little surprise.

Even the jury member Andrea Arnold, the director of The Great Corruption, actually published a review of the film.

People on the jury know how to watch movies, almost whenever they have free time.

Even Bernardo Bertolucci, the first member of the jury, was no exception. Lin Dong saw him sitting in a wheelchair several times and being pushed by his assistant to watch movies.

But few of them reveal their position in advance.

That would look unprofessional.

The wizard king's half-sister, Ms. Andrea Arnold, has always been known for being a maverick.

She is the darling of international film festivals such as Cannes, and she can win Oscars for short films.

It's her style to comment when she wants to.

Fortunately, this fellow did not complain about the movie. Although he also pointed out some shortcomings of the movie, most of the points he made were praises.

Especially he praised Lin Dong.

When it comes to the protagonist's interpretation of Xiao Ma's heart, the grinding is extremely precise, and the tension and sense of proportion in the performance are also just right.

He is a suppressed fire.

It's dark, depressive, and even decadent, but it also has a little bit of warmth.

This kind of praise is inexplicable and inspiring.

It gave Lin Dong the illusion that fellow villagers wanted to take him flying.

Is it true that he can win the Best Actor Award?

Although the Venice Film Festival's best actors are slightly inferior to those of Cannes and Berlin, they are better than those of the Golden Horse and the Golden Statue.

That is the true movie king.

Such good reviews are very useful.

The two shows on the second day basically guaranteed an attendance rate of 80%.

Du Qixi was a little disappointed.

He thought it would be a full house and that some viewers would even stand in the aisles to worship the movie.

I really think too much.

Venice has a total of less than 20,000 residents. Even if many people come during the film festival, there are only 30,000 people.

How many of the 30,000 people came to watch the movie?

Six exhibition halls.

How many people will crowd into a screening room to watch art films?

Able to maintain an attendance of 200 people per movie, "Massage" is enough to stand out from 90% of the films screened.

"Dongzi, in fact, if it weren't for you, my "Massage" would really be useless." Du Qixi's mood was still not very high.

"Brother Qixi, don't say that, the photo was taken very well."

Lin Dong's comfort was sincere.

Du Qixi is not very capable, but one good thing about him is that he doesn't mess around.

Do not engage in male-female or male-male relationships.

I don’t mess around with film shooting that I don’t know how to do.

The photographer he hired was very cool and gave him a lot of suggestions on photography, but this guy accepted them all regardless of the dignity of a director.

There’s also his “do it again if you think it’s ok or not”.

Although in fact he has no confidence.

But it indirectly caused the actors to understand the characters more thoroughly, and the points converged into a whole, which improved the overall quality of the movie.

"If you hadn't reminded me, I wouldn't have thought of taking it to the exhibition, and it might have been released in China tomorrow. If you were so speculative in chatting with the media at the press conference, no one would have watched our movie; if it hadn't been for you

If you do a good job, Northrend will not like our movie."

"Arnold, her name is Arnold, not Northrend." Lin Dong was speechless.

"Whatever, who cares whether her name is Alsace or Northrend." Du Qixi lay weakly on the bed with a big belly.

Like a salted fish waiting to be cooked.

"What do you think those people Jiang Xiaojun is looking for are doing it? Even if there are not so many viewers, there will be a lot of reports about our movie the next day. As long as the media reports it, people will definitely go see it the next day, just one day later.

That’s all.”

Lin Dong does not think of himself as too great.

This is indeed the case. His outstanding performance may have won more or less praise from the media, but this kind of alienated praise is really not enough to make reporters and film critics open their eyes and tell lies.

The final awards have not yet come.

But the three screenings have already demonstrated the high quality of the movie "Massage".

At this time, the film studio was faced with a choice: whether to bet on the film winning an award and act in advance, or wait until the awards ceremony was over before discussing business.

In fact, the Venice Film Festival is not a good place to sell movies.

Movies have dual attributes of art and business.

Except for Mr. Lin who doesn’t want to make money, most other film festivals also rely on these two wheels to drive.

As the three most authoritative film festivals recognized in the world - Cannes, Venice and Berlin, each has its own insistence on art and is on par with each other.

But in terms of business, Venice is like a confused child standing in front of a professional boxer. It is far away from Cannes and Berlin.

The number of booths is in single digits, and the film producers just assign people to them.

Even Toronto sells movies better than Venice.

If "Massage" hadn't been scheduled to be released on September 1st - Du Qixi did not change his plan because of participating in the film festival - he might have waited until next year to participate in the Cannes or Berlin Film Festival.

Today is September 3rd, and it has been released in China for two days.

The box office on the first day was 600,000. This was because I heard that the film was nominated for Venice and the number of films was increased a little. On the second day, it was over 300,000, which was a cliff-like drop.

Du Qixi's depression is also related to this.

Now he can only hope for overseas copyright.

The awards ceremony is on September 7. In the past few days while waiting for the awards ceremony, some film producers came to contact me.

A studio responsible for the Southeast Asian market made an offer of 300,000 euros, which was considered the highest.

This is already a great price.

The overseas rights to "Outing" from Wanwan were packaged together for only 150,000 euros.

However, it is far behind compared to "Gravity".

The overseas copyright of "Gravity" has been sold for US$10 million in the Southeast Asian market alone. After the movie is released in Southeast Asian countries, "Gravity" will continue to participate in the box office share of the portion exceeding US$10 million.

In the final analysis, Hollywood is still too popular, and Chinese-language films are becoming increasingly difficult to sell.

Three hundred thousand euros, converted into domestic money, is only about two million.

To sell or not to sell?

Lin Dong couldn't make the decision for him, and Jiang Xiaojun couldn't make the decision for him either.

Even those domestic producers who wanted to kill Du Qixi couldn't make the decision.

Two million is also money.

At this time, an accident happened.

Someone told Du Qixi that this movie cannot be sold like this.

This person's name is Hua Yan.

That's right, it was Hua Yan who was originally supposed to direct this film, but his job was taken away by Du Qixi.

Hua Yan is one of the representatives of the sixth generation of directors in Mainland China and an 89-year-old Nortel senior.

He planned to make this film after finishing "The Mystery of the Floating City". Unexpectedly, he was intercepted by a junior student, and the news spread in the circle. It was inevitable that he would feel uncomfortable.

He went to see the movie on the first day after it was released.

As a result, I saw a "Massage" that was completely different from what I expected.

He felt he could take better pictures.

But I have to admit that this film is also very good now, and there are many styles that he cannot produce.

At least the audience won't feel dizzy after watching it.

He knew the difficulties faced by "Massage": the domestic box office of this movie would never exceed 5 million.

Sure enough, with the bonus of being shortlisted for the Venice International Film Festival, it only took in a box office of 600,000, and it fell off a cliff the next day.

Even if you can win a prize, it will be difficult to exceed 5 million.

You can only hope to sell overseas copyrights to get your money back.

Hua Yan was more experienced than Du Qixi in how to defraud foreign film producers of their money. After the producer approached him and asked for advice, the advice he gave was to tear it apart and sell it after the awards ceremony.

Of course, if anyone can give 3 million euros, they can sell it to him.

Three million euros are enough to get the money back.

How much more demanding do you want to ask for?

Two hundred million?

hehe……

The award ceremony came as scheduled despite the excruciating wait, and Du Qixi's hair turned quite a bit gray.

Originally, he looked to be in his thirties or forties, but now he is heading towards his fifties.

But he was actually born in 1990. In September 2013, he was 23 years old, which is not even half of his age.

In order to cover up this change, Du Qixi put on his hat again.

I feel like this product may be accompanied by hats from now on.

If someone has a sunglasses king, he will become a hat king.

After the red carpet at the closing ceremony, everyone took their seats one after another. There was not as much formality as in China, and the seating arrangements were very casual. The attendees at the closing ceremony were basically media and filmmakers.

All members of the jury were sitting on the stage.

It is also very casual to sit.

The host announced the start and after talking a few nonsense words, the jury sitting in a wheelchair took out a crumpled white paper from his pocket.

Then read it as above.

There was no atmosphere at all. There was no introduction to the shortlisted films, no prize draw guests, and no award presenters.

The first one read out the Golden Lion Award.

The winner was "Roma Ring Road" from Italy, directed by Gianfranco Rossi. After this old man went up, he hugged the golden lion and kissed and chewed it.

Very obscene.

Du Qixi quietly expressed his contempt for the old man.

Then Mr. Zhu Xi read about the Silver Lion Award. The object of the Silver Lion Award is not fixed. Sometimes it is the Jury Prize, sometimes it is the Best Director, and it may also be the Best Actor or Best Actress.

This time it's Best Director.

Congratulations to Qixi Du from China.

Lao Du burst into tears at that time, and his tears couldn't stop flowing down.

Lin Dong kicked him twice, and then he remembered to go up and get the trophy back from the little sister who was the emcee.

During the speech, I was so chatty that I couldn't speak Chinese smoothly.

It took several minutes of crying - under normal circumstances thirty seconds is considered a long time, and some people even only need three grams of oil per sentence.

The way Lin Dong looked at the bamboo mat of the jury, he probably wanted to have this guy dragged away.

What a shame.

In fact, Lin Dong still can't understand why a person who doesn't like Chinese movies is so fond of Du Qixi's movie.

Could it be that because he has limited mobility and needs to use a wheelchair, he can relate to a flawed movie?

Next up is Wanwan's film, which won the Grand Jury Prize.

Among the nine awards, the Chinese won two grand prizes. Although they did not win the Golden Lion Award, it was enough to make the Chinese media excited.

Bernardo Bertolucci doesn't leave time for emotion.

He spoke slowly, but without stopping, he announced the Special Jury Award, Best Screenplay Award, and Best Actor Award—and as expected, it was not Lin Dong.

Although Lin Dong was nominated for this award.

But after Du Qixi won the Silver Lion Award, he only had a very slim chance of winning this award.

Because the jury has always tried its best to avoid awarding the Golden Lion, Silver Lion, Best Actor, and Best Actress to the same film, unless you can get the unanimous approval of the jury.

It means unanimous vote.

Lin Dong obviously does not have such strength.

The winner of the Best Actor Award was Themis Pano, who starred in the movie "Miss Violence".

The queen is Irina Cota, an eighty-two-year-old grandmother.

She appeared on the stage of drama at the age of sixteen.

She did not start acting in movies until she was 69 years old. The award-winning "Palermo" was her second movie. The movie embodies depressing cold violence.

"Best New Actor Award, Lin Dong, Lin Dong from China. Thanks to the movie "Massage" for allowing us to see an overly young director and an overly young actor."

Lin Dong did not cry.

I'm not an actor, so why cry?

Even if he is the Best Actor, he can't compare to Xia Yu, who won double Best Actor at the age of twenty.

Lin Dong took the strange-shaped trophy and said thank you.

Then he shouted to the audience in Chinese:

"I love movies!"

It only took about ten seconds from start to finish before I rolled back to my seat.

"Dongzi, let's..."

Du Qixi was still crying. He held the silver lion in one hand and grabbed Lin Dong's hand with the other.

It's sticky, full of tears and snot, it's really disgusting.

"Brother Qixi, think about it, even if we win the award, can the movie box office reach 200 million? It would be difficult for me to watch 3 million."

Lin Dong had no choice but to use stimulation therapy.

However, it was self-defeating and Du Qixi cried even more.

Damn you, I'm not glass. If you smear your nose on my trophy, I'll let you die in Venice.