Shortlisted

The Cannes Film Festival opened on Wednesday and would last for twelve days. Since he was going to this rare film event, Lu Yan decided to participate in the whole process.

It was now mid-May and the temperature was getting higher and higher everywhere. It was said that a high temperature warning had already started in the north a few days ago. The weather in recent years had really become more and more abnormal. However, the climate in France at this time was pleasant, and Cannes was a coastal city and a resort. Song Hui seemed particularly happy when he was packing things. He hummed a song and the clothes in his hands almost fluttered.

Lu Yan found it funny, “It’s not your first time going abroad, why are you so excited?”

Song Hui smiled with longing, “This time is different. This time I’m going to attend a film festival. I’m sure I’ll see a lot of big stars. I wonder if Tom and Robert will go. It would be so great if I could meet them in person. It would be best if I could get their autographs.”

The Tom and Robert mentioned by Song Hui were both Hollywood superstars and Song Hui’s favorite Hollywood stars. Lu Yan didn’t really want to hit him, but in fact, even if a superstar like this would go, he would at most show up at the opening ceremony and award ceremony, and he would definitely be escorted by a large number of bodyguards when going in and out. Even if he went to the scene, it was unknown whether he could meet him, let alone get autographs or take photos. But seeing how expectant Song Hui looked, he decided not to tell him yet.

They arrived in Cannes on Tuesday night and booked a hotel near the film festival venue. Because this was a private event, the company would not reimburse them, so all expenses had to be paid out of their own pockets.

Although Lu Yan was not very rich now, the various fees for advertising endorsements, film and television drama remuneration, and record sales were enough to allow him to stay in a nice hotel. Lu Yan was not used to living with others, and as a top broker, Qin Feng had no reason to let him condescend, so the three of them asked for three rooms.

Zhou Yingcai originally planned to find a cheaper hotel somewhere far away. He had not made any good movies in the past few years, and the box office of “Sniper” was terrible. He was almost penniless and could not afford to stay in a good hotel. 

Seeing Zhou Yingcai’s embarrassment, Lu Yan casually said that he had accidentally booked a double room by mistake, and wondered if Director Zhou would mind living with Song Hui for a few days. The four of them knew that Lu Yan had arranged this long ago, and he said this to take care of Zhou Yingcai’s feelings. Even if Zhou Yingcai was arrogant, he would not be so ignorant, not to mention that he had no capital now, so he accepted the arrangement with a “sorry for the trouble”.

The hotel was already star-studded. This hotel was close to the venue and was one of the top choices for filmmakers from various countries who came to participate in the exhibition. It was fully booked a week ago, and most of the reservations were made by filmmakers from various countries. 

Here, we also met two other domestic film crews participating in the exhibition. Coincidentally, one of them was the crew of “Top Secret”. Speaking of which, “Top Secret” and “Sniper” did have a connection. They both invited Lu Yan to be the leading actor, started filming at almost the same time, and had similar release dates. “Sniper” was only released two days earlier than “Top Secret”.

The result was completely different. Except for the first two days after its release when the box office was barely acceptable, the box office of “Sniper” continued to decline until it was withdrawn from major theaters early. In order to criticize “Sniper”, some film critics praised “Top Secret” strongly, saying that it was the release of the latter that sniped the former, and even used headlines such as “Sniper was sniped” to attract attention. As for those who liked “Top Secret”, of course they didn’t mind stepping on “Sniper” at the same time. Anyway, it had already fallen to the ground, so it was useless not to step on it. Like this, the two movies and even the two crews were set against each other.

In fact, Dai Zeng, the director of “Top Secret”, did have some opinions about the “Sniper” crew, of course, those opinions mainly came from Lu Yan. At first, he invited Lu Yan, a semi-newcomer, because of his rising popularity and his acting skills which were praised by Li Ran. As for the idea of ​​saving some film remuneration, it was not something that could be told to outsiders. With his fame and the good reputation of his movies, and the fact that no matter how popular Lu Yan was, he was still just a newcomer, he believed that Lu Yan had no reason to refuse. Who knew that Lu Yan actually refused. Just refuse it, for Dai Zeng it was not completely unacceptable, but what he couldn’t accept was that Lu Yan refused his invitation just to film Zhou Yingcai’s movie.

Who was Zhou Yingcai? With his fame and qualifications, could he compare with Dai Zeng? Apart from the title of a rising director, what else did he have? Honestly speaking, there was nothing wrong with Dai Zeng, except that he was a bit stingy and took things for granted. Originally, a big director should not argue with a small actor, but Dai Zeng was different. He was determined to make Lu Yan realize that he had made the most wrong decision in his life by rejecting him, Dai Zeng, and make him regret rejecting such an excellent movie.

So he threw away his previous idea of ​​saving money and directly spent money to invite the big star Zhuo Yunting to play the male lead. He also put a lot of effort into the filming process. The result was naturally very satisfactory. “Top Secret” could be ranked in the top ten movies released this year, and “Sniper”… hum, what was that?!

As the saying goes, enemies often meet on a narrow road. As luck would have it, these two films actually met again at the Cannes Film Festival, and the crews of the two films met in the hotel in advance. Although only the director and the male lead came from “Sniper”, they were no match for the other one. Dai Zeng didn’t say anything unpleasant to Zhou Yingcai. He just glanced at Lu Yan and snorted, “Young man, your strength is good, but if you want to succeed, vision is also very important.”

Zhou Yingcai’s expression suddenly changed, but he didn’t say anything. Qin Feng also felt uncomfortable. Lu Yan was the calmest. He even smiled at Dai Zeng and responded, “Director Dai is right. I agree with you.”

Dai Zeng was somewhat surprised that this young man was so calm. He looked at him seriously twice, said nothing more, and walked past him.

The opening ceremony on the second day was truly star-studded and enthusiastic. It seemed as if the enthusiasm of the entire city was concentrated here. Almost every performance by the crew won the screams of the large number of tourists and fans around. Even those little-known small crews and unpopular documentaries were not spared in their cheers from the onlookers.

Although there were only three domestic crews participating in the exhibition, there were many stars who came to join in the fun, so there were many domestic media on both sides of the red carpet, and they reported the grand opening ceremony back to the country that day.

Chinese people were very much looking forward to achieving some success at foreign film festivals, as this would prove the international status of Chinese-language films. Therefore, most movie fans who liked and paid attention to movies were also very concerned about this international event.

Of course, most people placed their hopes on “Top Secret” to win an award. As the saying goes, what belongs to the nation also belongs to the world. Nowadays, the vision of Chinese people was increasingly in sync with those outside. The last movie that achieved good results in Cannes was also a movie that achieved super high box office in the country.

However, some people thought that the perspectives of foreign judges may be rather peculiar, so some people were also optimistic about the other two films, but their expectations for “Sniper” were lower.

Therefore, in the reports sent back to the country, a lot of space was devoted to reporting on the various statuses of “Top Secret”, while “Sniper” and another film were almost glossed over.The only ones who could make “Sniper” feel more present were still those film critics and haters whose highest goal was to smear Zhou Yingcai and Lu Yan. So, many times, haters were really as loyal as fans. The ones who care about you the most may not be your allies, but your enemies.

All of this was something that Lu Yan and his team, who were at the film festival, could not pay attention to. At the moment, their only goal was to let more people see their film. Zhou Yingcai also made a lot of preparations and efforts for this purpose.

By the time half of the time had passed, all the shortlisted names had been finalized, and the selection of “Sniper” was beyond everyone’s expectations, except for Lu Yan.

However, “Top Secret” and the other Chinese-language film were not even nominated. After the list was announced, Lu Yan met Dai Zeng once again. This time, Dai Zeng kept his mouth shut and said nothing. He was not the kind of person who liked to make conclusions before the results came out and then get slapped in the face. He would rather wait until the dust settled before making a final judgment from a superior position.

So what if it was nominated? Being nominated didn’t mean they would definitely win. If they couldn’t win, then there was not much difference between being nominated and not being nominated. Anyway, the high box office of “Top Secret” was still on record, while “Sniper” had nothing.

Apparently most film critics thought so too, but they no longer dared to speak so bluntly, except for those few critics who had been blackmailing the film all their lives. Even at the risk of being slapped in the face, they persisted in making sarcastic remarks. It is not often that a blind cat catches a dead mouse, but it definitely happens. Being nominated was nothing special; winning an award was what makes a true hero.The award didn’t go to a dead mouse, but to a real mouse, which only a capable cat could catch, and “Sniper” was obviously not one of them.

But most movie fans didn’t care about these grudges. In their view, the only nominated “Sniper” was already their only hope of winning an award. If they didn’t want Chinese-language films to fail to win any awards again at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, they could only pray that “Sniper” could win the favor of the judges.

At this time, many fans had already started looking for information about “Sniper”. Because it was taken offline too quickly and not uploaded online, many people had never seen such a film. This time, the shortlisted films at the Cannes Film Festival had brought “Sniper” back into the public eye, and everyone’s curiosity had really been aroused. What kind of film was it that had a terrible box office and could still be nominated for an international film festival award? They really wanted to know.

Some people even started to explore the reasons why the film did not perform well at the box office, wondering if there was some shady deal going on.

And all this was just the beginning.