independent filmmaker

The long-distance trek was actually tiring, but Xie Lansheng's brain was excited, and he only slept for three or four hours this night after tossing and turning.

Early the next morning, Xie Lansheng ate the bread he had brought in the official hotel, boiled water in a small kettle and put it in two glass jars, let it dry for a while, tightened the bottle caps, carried them in a wool bag, and went out to participate in the event alone .

The Turin International Film Festival is an international B-category film festival, and it will also hold a large number of events, such as Onde focusing on experimental works, FestaMobile focusing on interesting stories, midnight unit, tribute unit... Moreover, although the Turin International Film Festival is a B-category The film festival, but not worse than some A category.

ABCD are just categories, not grades.The International Film Festival Committee, a subsidiary of the International Film Producers Association, which is composed of 37 producer organizations, divides film festivals into four categories: ABCD, among which category A is a competition-type non-specialized film festival, and a country can only certify one. , Category B is a competition-type special film festival, the type of Turin Film Festival is "new director", category C is a non-competition film festival, which can only provide places for exhibition and trading, and category D is a short film festival.However, although there is no distinction between high and low, Cannes International Film Festival, Berlin International Film Festival, and Venice International Film Festival are the world's three major film festivals recognized by the International Film Producers Association.Italy is a palace of art, therefore, Turin, which is "secondary", also has considerable influence. Xie Lansheng has been looking forward to the film festival for a month.

He took the elevator to the first floor, and the elevator door opened with a "ding". Xie Lansheng was quite surprised to find that Miss Morita stepped out of the opposite elevator that went to the first floor at the same time!

She obviously also saw Xie Lansheng, and said hello: "Hi!"

Xie Lansheng also said: "Hi!"

Ms. Morita still wanted to talk, but she couldn't speak Chinese, and her English was not good. After a long time, she said, "Hi!"

Xie Lansheng also: "Hi!"

The two of them "Hi" back and forth three times. Miss Morita thought of something, but she couldn't ask. She opened her hands and didn't say anything for a long time. To Morita.

Morita put the notebook in the palm of his hand and wrote: [Magazine advertisement? 】

Xie Lansheng: "???"

Morita clicked on the Chinese characters and said, "Buy? Buy?" She only knows the most basic English words.

Lan Sheng shook his head blankly.

Ms. Morita frowned, and made movements while desperately drawing circles on the words "magazine advertisement".She pointed, waved her hand again, and said to Xie Lansheng, "Notgood! Verybad!"

"what?"

Ms. Morita was a little anxious, she walked to the front desk and gestured, and the waiter of the official hotel called a room for her.

Xie Lansheng just waited quietly.

After about two or three minutes, a Japanese interpreter took the elevator down to the first floor and saw Morita walking over.What Morita said to him, he turned to look at Xie Lansheng, and said in fairly fluent English: "Director Xie, after saying goodbye last night, Ms. Morita went back to check and found that "Growing Roots" was actually selected as the main competition unit'International Drama Morita suggested that you must buy an advertisement in the show catalog, otherwise media reporters and big film critics would not watch its screening, nor would they be interested. And if the reception is cold, the sales company and the organizing committee It will be considered that there is no market for it, it will be difficult to sell the copyright, and it will be difficult to win awards."

Xie Lansheng: "..." So there are still these ways?

The translator went on to say: "On the shortlist of the film festival, there are only works, directors and nationalities. "Rooting" is a Chinese work, which is marginalized in Europe. Few audiences pay attention to it, and few can sell copyrights, so , media reporters and major film critics are likely to skip it directly, and the sales executives of the sales company will also be busy talking with others. You know, there are thousands of films screened in the film festival this week. The program is in the main part of the film festival It is distributed free of charge before the venue. You can describe the outline on the advertisement page of the official venue catalog to attract attention and let people watch it. If the popularity can rise, it is possible to win awards and it is easier to sell copyrights. At the film festival, build momentum is very important."

"..." Xie Lansheng was very moved, and thanked Morita and the translator, "Thank you, I really didn't know that the film festival had such remarks."

Morita responded in Japanese again, the interpreter heard it, and relayed: "Everyone is from Asia. We understand the actual plight of Asian filmmakers, others may not really know. Morita also suddenly felt that you might Don't understand these things."

Xie Lansheng thought, perhaps Morita was worried about this because it was too old-fashioned to carry boiling water, and it didn't seem understandable.He thought for a while, then asked, "How much are these advertisements?"

Morita's translator replied: "The cheapest is ten thousand dollars."

Hearing this terrifying number, Xie Lansheng immediately misfired.

He didn't even have to ask how to get the advertisement, and said with a smile, "Thank you, thank you both, it was a great help."

"Yes." Miss Morita nodded slightly, and smiled at Xie Lansheng: "Bye-bye!"

"Bye-Bye."

Knowing this all of a sudden, Xie Lansheng felt a little anxious again.

There are only two days before the official screening of "Rooting", but he has no money to buy advertisements... Then, can he still attract media reporters, big film critics and foreign sales companies to watch his film at the venue?

If the whole room is empty by then... He dare not think.

Before that, he thought that the group of people who love movies would hang out at the venue all day long.

…………

Because of the limited publicity time, Xie Lansheng had no time to participate in official activities. He carried cans and bottles and walked along the street to the venue, thinking about what to do while walking.

5 RMB per ad, kill him...

So what if you don't advertise?Can we just wait to die?

No, he's finally here.

Xie Lansheng heard from Qi Yong that the film selection committee of the film festival has a very heavy job of watching films, and at the same time, the salary is very little. Many times, the committee members only watch the beginning of a film and eliminate a film.Due to the limited manpower, some films are even watched by only one committee member at home, and whether this person likes or not determines the fate of the film.There are all kinds of members in the film selection, and their preferences are even different. He can't guarantee that he will be shortlisted for the film festival in the future.

But... can he still fight his way out?

He thought silently.

There is no unparalleled road in the sky, and Xie Lansheng suddenly discovered a major feature of this place - the greenery is very good.

Two rows of trees sandwich the road, and the wide branches reach the sky. Anyone who wants to participate in the activities must pass through these trees.

Tree……

Um?Yes, tree! ! !

Xie Lansheng stopped, looked up at the bare brown and black trunks of the trees, and had an idea.

He walked to the head, observed carefully, and gradually felt a little excited, his blood accelerated, his heart beat faster, as if it could reach his throat, and he immediately turned back to the hotel.

Xinye had already woken up at this time and was shaving in front of the mirror.He tilted one side of his neck slightly, exposing his angular jaw, which was very sexy.

But Xie Lansheng didn't have time to pay attention to him, so he went straight to the table and sat down, pulled out a 16-motif paper, and began to write the "Rooting" advertisement.

Well... first write a slogan, okay, then write a summary of the content, okay, then write four characteristics of the movie, and finally a call to action... "Watch "Rooting" on December 12th" should be pretty good... …

A few minutes later, he dug out the storyboard and cut out the pictures that he found most shocking, planning to use them as illustrations for advertisements.

After shaving, Xin Ye came over feeling refreshed, and asked, "What are you doing?"

"Xinye, you came just in time!" Xie Lansheng stood up and sat down at the table with Xinye, "Quickly, quickly, translate these words into English, I'm going out to post advertisements."

"……Um?"

"Ms. Morita just said that Asian movies are very unpopular. Media reporters, big film critics, and sales companies will not go to the screening at all. They have to advertise in the show magazine, introduce themselves, attract attention, and increase the degree of discussion. good result."

"so?"

Xie Lansheng smiled: "I don't have money to advertise. But I found some big trees on the way to the main venue. We can stick them on them and take them down after the end."

Xin Ye looked up at Lan Sheng, feeling that he was always underestimating him.

Being urged by Xie Lansheng again, Xinye lowered his eyes, picked up a pen, and translated Xie Lansheng's advertisement sentence by sentence into English.As a graduate of Harvard's economics department, he also tweaked it slightly to make the ad more appealing.

Xie Lansheng, relying on his artistic skills as a director, pulled out a new piece of paper, transcribed English, pasted pictures, designed everything, and made his own advertisements.

After finishing all this, he was very happy, and even rushed out without talking to Xinye, asking the waiters in the hotel to introduce him to a shop where he could make copies, and he trotted all the way there, and asked the copying agency to print more than 100 small advertisements in a row .

The photocopying agency can also print cultural T-shirts with patterns, and Xie Lansheng didn't hesitate, so he bought a T-shirt with the "Rooting" advertisement on both sides, and felt quite exciting to wear it on himself.

When he came out again, Xie Lansheng hugged the advertisements and tape, ran to the road in front of the venue, took a deep breath, and carefully pasted the small advertisements on the big tree trunk one by one.

When Xie Lansheng posted it, many people gathered around, watching and saying: "Root...fromChina..."

Facts have proved that this trick is effective, and Xie Lansheng is quite happy.

It was noon when the ad was posted.Xie Lansheng went back to the official hotel to have lunch with Xinye, and then quite proudly took Xinye to watch the advertisements and his masterpieces.

I don't know this, I was shocked when I saw it!

There are a lot of poor directors copying him according to the gourd painting!

The trees were originally very clean, and there was only one advertisement for "Rooting", but now it has been plastered by directors from all over the world!All kinds of advertisements are densely packed, Xie Lansheng's "Rooting" advertisement has long been suppressed!

Xie Lansheng took a look and found that there were Indian poor ghosts, Iranian poor ghosts, Greek poor ghosts, and Czechoslovak poor ghosts...

God... he set off a trend.

As the originator of tree trunk advertising, Xie Lansheng was naturally unwilling to be crushed by others like this. He thought for a while, turned his head, and looked up and down at Xinye's 1.8-meter-seven height.

"Xin Ye," Xie Lansheng said, "You are so tall and you have a place to use, we can post it up."

Xin Ye: "..." He is one of the "Big Three" film stars. If someone recognized him on the spot, he would really have no face to go out. However, for some reason, Xin Ye twitched the corner of his mouth and said, "Okay." .”

If he wants to be crazy, he will be crazy with him; if he wants to be crazy, he will be crazy with him.He wants to enter his world.Besides, before that, he had only made two films and won one award, so he might not know anyone.

The two adjusted the layout again in the hotel room, enlarged the important characters, copied them again, and pasted them again.

Xinye is tall, with particularly long legs, and can be attached to the top, but Xie Lansheng is still not at ease, hoping to be safer, so he stretches out his hand to pat Xinye: "Xinye, come on, hold me up, I'm here Put another one on top." After speaking, Xie Lansheng turned his back to Xin Ye, waved his hands on both sides, "Come on!"

Hearing this strange request, Xin Ye just smiled, eyes full of doting, then squatted down slightly, hugged Lan Sheng's thighs, and lifted them up with all his strength.

"Okay, okay!" Xie Lansheng pressed the advertisement on the tree with one hand, glued it with the other hand, and patted it to ensure that the advertisement was firmly standing on the tree trunk.

Xie Lansheng unconsciously twisted and twisted in Xinye's arms, and Xinye's eyes were level, and he could just see... He stared at each other, thinking, this little butt is quite fleshy.

They put up 15 advertisements for half an hour, eight on the tree in the south of the main venue, and seven in the north of the main venue. Xie Lansheng felt that the effect should be achieved.The parking lot is tens of meters away, and everyone who comes to the film festival should be able to see the advertisement.

…………

Because there were still a lot of advertisements left, Xie Lansheng came up with another idea of ​​"harassing" everyone at night.

He lives in the official hotel, and knows that at this moment, the hotel is full of practitioners in the film industry, including producers, directors, actors, and sales executives of the sales company...

Moreover, not only this hotel, but also the one next to it and the two opposite it should be filmmakers.While there must be a lot of people living elsewhere, like downtown, there must also be a lot of people living nearby, maybe half and half.

After thinking about this, he printed 1100 "Rooting" advertisements before the copying agency closed, using Xinye's Visa international credit card in the United States.This time he was very generous and printed the movie of Sun Fengmao (Chapter 1, Chapter 3) who is also in Turin on the back.Speaking of it, Sun Fengmao completed the preparatory work earlier than Xie Lansheng, but Fengmao used the advertising company's camera to shoot the movie, and that advertising company only borrowed the camera on Sundays, and Fengmao edited it himself, which also delayed a lot of time.In addition, Sun Fengmao's movie "Play" has also been remade, and Xie Lansheng is a brother-in-law - because he has no qualifications for printing, Sun Fengmao asked a film factory that has long stopped developing movies to pull out the abandoned film processing tank for him to use after work. Unexpectedly, the film tank was in disrepair for a long time, and it got stuck halfway through the work. He threw himself on the film tank and tried his best to pull it out, but he couldn't pull it out, and a large part of the film was wasted.Although Sun Fengmao's film was not shortlisted for the main competition unit "Turin 19", it entered other units and had the opportunity to sell the copyright.Xie Lansheng naturally hoped that everyone could get out of the way, so he brought Feng Mao's with him.

Xie Lansheng held the advertisement in his hand, did not eat dinner, but stood at the entrance of major hotels at the time when normal people should have finished dinner, and distributed advertisements to tourists from all over the world who looked like filmmakers.Wearing a T-shirt of "Growing Roots", he advertised to the other party while sending out: "Hello! I am a Chinese filmmaker, and my film "Growing Roots" has been shortlisted for the main competition in Turin. It will be screened on the 5th. Welcome to watch!"

Some people looked down on him very much, but more people responded with a smile, took the flyer and read the words on it, some of them in suits even chatted with him, and asked him why he came to distribute the flyer himself as a director, President Xie Lansheng Neither humble nor overbearing, they all smiled and replied: "I don't have the funds to do publicity! But I very much hope that "Rooting" can be seen by people with their own eyes." The other party always expressed understanding.

Xie Lansheng posted a lot of advertisements at the hotel next door and the hotel opposite, and the time to return to his "official hotel" was 9 pm.He deeply felt that the official hotel here should be the main battlefield, so he sneaked up to the top floor and sneaked advertisements through the cracks in the doors of each room.

He acted like a thief, and when a waiter passed by, he honestly pretended to be walking, and when no one saw him, he would put in small advertisements like a thief.There are a total of 500 rooms in the hotel, he thought, he can stuff as much as he can, and if he is kicked out, he will be kicked out. Anyway, the screening will be over the day after tomorrow... If someone happens to see it, the possibility of being kicked out is really impossible Underestimated.

Be careful, be careful—

In front of a certain room, Xie Lansheng was sticking his buttocks and stuffing an advertisement into the crack of the door, when suddenly he heard an authentic English accent behind him: "Who, are, You."

"!!!"

Got caught! ! !Even Xie Lansheng jumped up in fright!

He hurriedly turned around, showing a flattering smile, and said: "I am a Chinese filmmaker, and my film "Growing Roots" has been shortlisted for the main competition in Turin...but I don't have the funds to advertise in the program for everyone to go." Look, I can only print the leaflets myself, hoping to get a little attention..." Xie Lansheng handed over the advertisement for "Rooting" in his hand, pointed to the back, and said, "Well, the back is another Chinese movie. The movie made by the director is called "Play".

The tall British man took the advertisement, his face paled, he looked down at the flyer in his hand, then looked up at Xie Lansheng's eyes, raised his hand, and took out a silver metal business card holder from his pocket , took out one, handed it to Xie Lansheng, and said, "Bill."

"Hi, Bill, my name is Xie Lansheng. It's a pleasure to meet you." Xie Lansheng took the business card, looked at it carefully, and found that the name on it was "William Wilson" and he was the sales director of "Renaissance International".

I don't know what kind of company "Renaissance International" is, it seems that I have never heard of it.

"Yeah." Bill nodded coldly, took a step forward, and Xie Lansheng stepped back half a foot. Bill swiped his card to enter the house, and the door closed with a click.

"Huh, it's dangerous... I almost got called a waiter." Xie Lansheng was still in shock, patted his chest, and continued to stuff.

At about eleven o'clock, Xie Lansheng finally had only the last advertisement in his hand, and the work was about to be completed.

However, just as he was about to stuff it, his hand suddenly stopped there.

A moment later, he took the ad back with a snap, folded it carefully, and took it back to the standard room on the fifth floor where he and Xin Ye were.

Xin Ye opened the door for him, and asked, "Have all the advertisements been distributed?"

"No," Xie Lansheng's eyes were bright, he carefully held the last leaflet of "Growing Roots" with both hands, and said, "There is one left."

Xin Ye raised his eyebrows: "Why do you have one left?"

"Because..." Xie Lansheng walked in, went to the table, picked up a hero pen with pure blue ink, wrote a few words on the upper left corner of the advertisement, folded the page again, and solemnly handed it to Xinye's chest. Before, he said, "Because...Xin Ye, I want to give you the last "Rooting" invitation."

Xinye lowered his head: "...Huh?"

"I remembered that you offered to participate in this film festival at the very beginning. I wanted to come alone. But... um... Xinye, I never invited you to watch the premiere of "Growing Roots" together, but now , I sincerely invite you to attend the screening of the movie, which is very important to me. Well, you were invited by the director, not because you have to watch it yourself."

Xinye seemed a little surprised, and after a few seconds, he stretched out his hand to take the simple advertisement, and said with a smile, "Okay, I accept the invitation, and I will go."

"Thank you!" Xie Lansheng said, "Then, I'll take a shower first."

"Row."

After Xie Lansheng left, Xinye opened the advertisement, his eyes were glued to the words "To: Xinye" that Xie Lansheng had just written one stroke at a time in the upper left corner with great care.

He realized that this was the first time the other party wrote his name outside the set.

He recalled the way Xie Lansheng solemnly handed it over just now, staring at the few Chinese characters, as if he wanted to remember every detail in his mind, at the end, he stroked it gently with his fingers, and laughed to himself.

The author has something to say: Ye Fengmao has changed to Sun Fengmao.