Chapter 441 Cannes Film Festival Selection Results

After the release of "Fight Club", although the box office data was average, the word of mouth was very good.

Many film critics praised the film as a classic thriller with a style and narrative techniques similar to several of Link's thrillers. The film's director David Fincher has also been called the 'second Link'. As long as he continues to learn Link's way of making movies, he may be as successful as Link in the future.

As the producer of the film, Guess Pictures has also received a lot of praise for the film.

"Complete Movie" magazine commented that Guess Pictures is different from the Big Seven Studios in that it is not a film company that is completely driven by box office revenue. When making movies, Guess Pictures also pays great attention to the artistic level of the films and has produced many high-quality literary and artistic films, including "Fight Club", "Girl, Interrupted", "Boogie Nights", "Smoke", etc. Other film companies should learn from Guess Pictures.

By early May, after more than two months of intensive filming, "Tomorrow Never Dies" was completed.

Before Link started editing, the 50th Cannes International Film Festival opened. As the chairman of the jury, Link needed to attend the opening ceremony and the subsequent awards selection work.

As it is the 50th anniversary of the Cannes Film Festival, the number of films participating in the exhibition this year far exceeds that of previous years, with a total of 726 films from 78 countries and regions participating.

Guess What Pictures has three films participating in the exhibition, namely, "Evita", "The Ice Storm" and "The Legend of 1900". The latter film will only be exhibited and will not participate in the award selection.

"L.A. Confidential" and "The Fifth Element", co-produced by Guess What Films and Columbia Pictures, are also participating in this year's film festival.

After a week of exhibition and selection, 21 films were shortlisted for the main competition unit.

Including "Evita", "The Ice Storm", "L.A. Confidential", "Taste of Cherry", "Eel", "Happy Together", "Do Not Swallow", "Forbidden Woman", "Love Storm", "Funny Games", "Survivor", "Zheng Chenggong", etc.

The first round of selection is mainly organized by the media, film critics, on-site audiences, the Cannes jury and other organizations.

After the list of films shortlisted for the main competition unit was announced, Link and the jury members gathered together to watch 21 films and score them on the spot. Finally, 10 awards were selected, including the Palme d'Or, Special Jury Award, Jury Prize, Best Director, Best Actor and Best Actress.

This year's jury consists of 10 main members, including French actress Isabelle Adjani, Hong Kong actress Maggie Cheung, American director David Lynch, American writer Paul Auster, British director Mike Leigh, etc.

After three rounds of voting, the Iranian film "Taste of Cherry" and the Chinese film "Zheng Chenggong" won the highest award of the Cannes Film Festival - the Palme d'Or.

Shohei Imamura's "Eel" won the Special Jury Prize.

The Argentine film "Evita" won the Jury Prize.

Wong Kar-wai's "Happy Together" won the Best Director Award, Sean Penn won the Best Actor Award for "The Storm", and British actress Kathy Burke won the Best Actress Award for "Don't Eat".

"The Ice Storm" won the Best Screenplay Award, "The Fifth Element" and "The Storm of Love" won the Special Technical Award, and the Egyptian film "Destiny" won the 50th Anniversary Award.

There were no problems when the awards were announced, but after the news reached the United States, many American media questioned the results of the selection, believing that the results were unfair and that a high number of films under Guess Pictures were included in the award list, including "Zheng Chenggong", "Evita", "The Ice Storm", "The Fifth Element" and other films that were invested and produced by Guess Pictures.

Link is the boss of Guess What Pictures. Let him be the chairman of the jury, and all the winning works will be from his company. This is so unfair to other filmmakers.

Some media believe that the Cannes Film Festival organizers' invitation to Link to serve as the jury president was a failure, and that Link did not remain objective and fair when serving as the jury president, which is disappointing.

The New York Post, Entertainment Today, Star Weekly and other media outlets began to hype that there was something fishy about the selection results of the 50th Cannes Film Festival, and that Link, as the jury chairman, had failed to perform his duties. Some media also claimed that this was the "darkest moment" in the history of the Cannes Film Festival, etc. These media used various methods to discredit Link.

In response to this, Link said in an interview with the media that the selection of each award was the result of multiple rounds of voting, and the winning films also had the strength to win the awards. There was no such thing as an individual dominating the award selection, nor was there any shady dealings. He advised certain media not to lead the rhythm indiscriminately.

What Link said was true. Apart from canvassing votes for "Zheng Chenggong", the selection of other awards was carried out normally according to the procedures without any interference. Therefore, the selection work of this year's Cannes Film Festival was generally fair and just.

The organizers of the Cannes Film Festival also recognized this result, believing that there were no problems with the award selection process and results. Whether it was the number of films exhibited, the attention they received, or the level of activity in the film trading market, all of these set new records.

This film festival was very successful. I hope the American media will not influence the rhythm.

After a few days of hype, the American media found that the attention was not high and gradually gave up the hype.

After returning from Paris, Link went to the studio to edit the film. Originally, he was used to editing while shooting, and then doing a fine-cutting after finishing. This time the work was more detailed and troublesome to handle. It took him two weeks to finish editing all the shots.

During the filming of "007", Rie Miyazawa, Norika Fujiwara and others called him many times to ask when the filming would be finished and when he would come to Miami to see the six of them.

After editing the movie, Link flew directly to the Miami Palm Beach vacation villa, where he played around with Miyazawa Rie, Sakai Izumi, Fujiwara Norika, Kudo Shizuka, Sawaguchi Yasuko, and Nakamori Akina.

Miyazawa Rie and the others are all standard Japanese women, with petite figures and fair, soft and delicate skin. Among them, the tallest, Fujiwara Norika, is only 171 cm tall, and Sawaguchi Yasuko is the shortest, only 158 cm tall.

Even with six people attacking together, they couldn't even move one of Link's arms, and they also had a serious admiration for the strong.

When the first six people were sent to Link as gifts by Nobuyuki Idei, some of them were reluctant and had gloomy faces and were in a bad mood all day long. For example, Izumi Sakai and Akina Nakamori almost never smiled at him.

However, after living together several times, the six girls' attitudes changed drastically. Even the most willful Izumi Sakai became obedient to him. Sometimes she would take the initiative to sit on the beach with a guitar and sing for him. Akina Nakamori also began to like snuggling her petite body in his strong and warm arms, and would not resist no matter how he did sexual things to her.

The other women would also cook delicious Japanese food for him, dance with fans for him in kimonos, kneel on the ground to change his shoes, and say thank you for your hard work in cute Japanese.

She behaved very gently and virtuously.

Link also had a rare opportunity to experience authentic Japanese culture.

They were very satisfied with the girls' performance, considering that they grew up in Japan, lived and worked there, and would not be used to living in Miami for a long time.

He arranged for his men to buy three luxury houses in a wealthy area of ​​Tokyo to accommodate the six people and provide them with excellent living conditions.

In addition, he also called Nobuyuki Idei and said that he would go to Tokyo for vacation when he had time, and asked Nobuyuki Idei to help take care of them and give them more resources, and Guess Pictures would continue to cooperate with Columbia.

Nobuyuki Idei agreed very eagerly, guaranteeing that the girls would have more opportunities to develop in the Japanese entertainment industry and that no one would harass them.

After learning about his arrangement, Norika Fujiwara and Shizuka Kudo became even gentler to him, saying that they would come to live in the United States when they were not working, and return to Tokyo when they were busy with work. They also hoped that he would live in Tokyo more often, and they would work harder to serve him.

Link did not refuse. As long as the women were willing to stay, he would take on his responsibilities as a man and try his best to take care of their lives and meet their needs.

(End of this chapter)