On May 14, the day before the opening of the Cannes Film Festival, the main venue of the Cannes Film Palace was completed. Workers had erected huge posters outside the movie palace. The outside of the venue was filled with police forces to maintain public order, and the entire small town was decorated with romantic colors of light and shadow.

The film festival has not officially opened, but journalists from all over the world have already flocked to it, especially Nice Airport, 27 kilometers away from Cannes. Before dawn, it was blocked by reporters. Today, celebrities from all walks of life will come one after another, and this is the best place to grab celebrities.

At the same time, Zhang Ran held his daughter reluctantly and kissed several times, and then embarked on the journey to Cannes. In addition to Zhao Fei, he was Li Xuejian and Wang Luodan, as well as their assistants. The airport in Cannes was very small and he could not fly a large plane. Zhang Ran and the others could only drive a ten-seater Gulfstream. The other members of the crew could not take Zhang Ran's plane, but could only take a passenger plane to Cannes. Of course, they were all first class, and the fees were covered by the film festival.

Zhang Ran’s plane did not land at Nice Airport, but landed at a private airport called Mandeleu outskirts of Cannes. Mandeleu has no regular routes, and all take-off and landing are chartered flights or private planes. Real big names come to Cannes by private planes, and their planes often park in Mandeleu.

Zhang Ran and his party walked down from the plane and dragged their luggage out. Suddenly, they shouted: "Zhang! Zhang!"

Zhang Ran and the others stopped and looked up. There were several cars parked not far away. Cannes Film Festival chairman Jacob and artistic director Fu Mao stood next to the car, waving at everyone.

Zhang Ran waved his hand to Fumao and the others, and said to Li Xuejian and the others: "Jacob and Fumao are here to pick us up, let's go!" As he said that, he dragged his suitcase and walked towards Jacob and the others.

Jacob came up and gave Zhang Ran a warm gift. He met Zhang Ran. Nine years ago, Zhang Ran took "Time Warriors" to Cannes for screening. He thought this young director was good and creative, but unfortunately the movie was too commercial. At that time, he never expected Zhang Ran to grow to this point now. Jacob said with some emotion: "Zhang Ran, it's been a long time since he saw him! It's great that you can come to Cannes!"

"Hello Jacob! I haven't seen you for nine years, you haven't changed at all!" Zhang Ran smiled and began to introduce the crew members, "Let me introduce it. This is Li Xuejian, the starring actor of "The Scarlet Sun", this is photographer Zhao Fei, and this is Wang Luodan."

Jacob shook hands with everyone very politely, and then asked to get in the car: "Don't stand here, let's talk about getting in the car."

The group got into the car one after another. Zhang Ran and the bodyguard got into Jacob's car, and the bodyguard sat in the passenger seat. The driver started the car without waiting for anyone's order and drove out.

As soon as the car drove out of the airport exit, Zhang Ran was surprised to find hundreds of fans standing in front of him, including men and women, with different skin colors. They were holding support cards in various languages ​​and posters of Zhang Ran’s movies, constantly looking into the airport. In addition, there were reporters from all over the world, holding cameras and ready to take photos at any time.

The appearance of Jacob and his car instantly attracted the attention of fans. They immediately screamed, waving the altitude and support card in their hands, shouting Zhang Ran's name; while the reporters took a crazy photo at Zhang Ran in the car.

Zhang Ran was a little surprised. He did not reveal his schedule. He didn't expect that the fans and reporters would know. At the same time, he felt a warm current flowing in his body, warming his whole body. He rolled down the car window and waved to everyone with a smile: "Hello, thank you for your hard work!"

"Zhang Ran, I love you!", "Zhang Ran, we will always be with you!", "Zhang Ran, I will always support you!"...

Soon, the car drove into the Barrier Hotel opposite the Palace of Movie. This is the official hotel of the Film Festival. It is about 200 meters away from the Palace of Movie. Celebrities can walk out of the hotel and walk on the Cannes red carpet, so they are deeply loved by celebrities.

Settling down at the hotel, Zhang Ran and Jacob sat on the sofa and chatted.

Jacob said with emotion: "I retired after Cannes this year. At the last film festival I was in charge of, my career as a president of the film festival has been perfect!"

Because it was the last Cannes held by Jacob, this year's Cannes can be said to be a gathering of masters and a rare New Year. From the main competition unit to a kind of attention, all kinds of powerful characters gathered together.

Zhang Ran is not particularly interested in other directors. The one who is really interested is Godard. He really wants to meet this old man. However, Godard is an old angry young man. Since attending the Cannes Film Festival in 2001, he has never stepped into the Cannes Film Festival again, nor has he attended any awards ceremony. Even the Oscar Lifetime Achievement Award refused to attend. His evaluation of Cannes is that the place is messy all day long, like a circus, and it is really tiring to go there. Godard will definitely not come at this Cannes Film Festival. Zhang Ran felt a little regretful: "It's a pity that Godard will not come. If he can come, then your farewell ceremony will be perfect!"

Jacob suddenly smiled: "No, Godard will come this year!"

Zhang Ran was stunned. He remembered that Zhang Ran remembered that Godard did not attend in his previous life. Why did he suddenly attend again this time? He was very surprised by this: "Are you sure?" He saw Jacob nodding with great certainty and smiled: "Even Godard is here, this is a perfect curtain call."

Jacob looked at Zhang Ran and said seriously: "Thank you for this. Godard wants to see you and also wants to see what tricks your 3D movie will play, so he decided to come to Cannes!"

Zhang Ran was stunned and then laughed: "Actually, I want to see him, talk to him, I look forward to meeting him!"

Zhang Ran doesn't particularly like Godard's movies. He thinks it's too elitist, but he really admires this person. Godard has been resisting bourgeois movies all his life and fighting against Hollywood. He doesn't care whether there are audiences in his movies, but only cares whether he is still thinking and whether he is still exploring. He has fought all his life and explored all his life. For such a person, you may not like his works, but you must respect this person.

Zhang Ran was not very interested in participating in this Cannes Film Festival, but came to promote it. Now that he heard that he could meet Godard, he suddenly became expectant about this trip to Cannes.

After seeing off Jacob, Zhang Ran planned to go out for a walk. In order to avoid being recognized by movie fans and causing confrontation, he put on some makeup before going out, put on a fake beard, and put on sunglasses.

Walking on the streets of Cannes, Zhang Ran was surprised that Chinese faces were everywhere on the streets, just like in China. Zhang Ran remembered that when he came to Cannes a few years ago, there were not many people in the east. He could see one or two Chinese journalists and Chinese movie fans from time to time in the crowd. Unexpectedly, Chinese faces were everywhere now.

Zhang Ran remembered that in the hotel just now, Jacob told him that the number of Chinese delegations in Cannes has the largest increase, with an increase of about 20% every year. This year, the number of Chinese delegation participants has reached more than 700. In addition, reporters from various domestic newspapers and websites, various internet celebrities who come to ride the red carpet, and tourists who come to travel and join in the fun, there are probably thousands of Chinese people in Cannes, so it is not surprising that there are Chinese faces everywhere.

The good advertising space for the Cannes Film Festival is the building opposite the street of the Movie Palace. During the film festival, there will always be an extremely huge, giant Cannes main poster advertisement upstairs. Due to the high price, ordinary movies cannot afford this advertising space. This is the private place for Hollywood blockbusters for a long time, but this year this location belongs to Ning Hao's "Rural Teacher".

The exterior walls of various high-end hotels from the Palace of Movies were always ruled by Hollywood blockbusters in the past, but now they are half taken away by Chinese movies, and are full of Chinese movie posters. Jiang Wen's "One Step Away" packaged the open-air advertising space of the Dahua Hotel and hung a huge poster. John Woo's "The Wolf" grabbed the particularly fiercely competitive Carlton Hotel, Zheng Baorui's "Three Fights of the Bone Demon" won the advertising space of the Marriott Hotel, and the poster of "Wolf Totem" hung on the wall of the Cannes Hotel...

Chinese commercial blockbusters have come to Cannes and gather together to show off their talents and attract attention from all over the world.

For a long time in the past, Chinese-language movies have been a very small film genre internationally, and it is difficult to enter the distribution of mainstream commercial movies in Europe and the United States. The only thing that can be sold in commercial movies are the action movies of Cheng Long and Jet Li, and other types are basically unsold.

However, with the rise of the century at its peak, a number of excellent commercial productions have been launched in recent years, such as Ning Hao's "Three Colors World", Ding Sheng's "Chasing the K-Star Man", and Urshan's "Ants", which have achieved good box office overseas. Overseas film companies have begun to close Chinese commercial blockbusters, and Chinese commercial blockbusters have also come to Cannes on a large scale, using the Cannes platform for publicity, trying to enter the European market.

"Look! Zhang Ran!" Zhang Ran was in a daze as he was watching the poster of the movie "Ansopa", when someone suddenly shouted.

Zhang Ran was startled and thought he was recognized and was about to leave quickly. However, when he looked over, he found that the speaker pointed his finger at a poster three or four meters high. It was the poster of the movie "The Sun Burning Body". Li Xuejian and the blind dog stood on the top of the mountain, and a large number of sunlight fell on them, bright and piercing the eyes. The poster was written in Chinese and English with the name of the movie, as well as director: Zhang Ran, starring: Li Xuejian...

The man looked at the poster and danced to his friend, "Look at the sunshine, this strong overexposure, it is like "The Aviator". I have a hunch that this will be an outstanding work like "The Aviator".

Seeing that he was not recognized, Zhang Ran breathed a sigh of relief, walked forward along the street.

Swaying on the street for a while, Zhang Ran looked at his watch and found that the difference was mostly dinner time. He was about to go to find a restaurant to have dinner when he suddenly heard someone shouting in a strange tone: "Teacher Zhang!"

Many students from Zhang Ran came to Cannes to promote the movie. When they heard someone calling him Teacher Zhang, Zhang Ran thought he had met his student. He thought, why is the voice strange? Is it because of a cold? Zhang Ran stopped and looked up, and saw a black man in his twenties waving at him, trying to attract his own ideas. It was not someone else, but it was Ryan Coogler, who had been filming Zhang Ran for several months when filming "The Scarlet Sun".

Ryan Coogler made a big splash at this year's Sundance Film Festival and won the jury award for "Frutville Station". The film also attracted the attention of the Cannes Film Festival and was successfully shortlisted for this year's attention unit. In just half a year, he has become a director star who is very concerned in the industry.

Zhang Ran has watched "Frutville Station" and believes that the movie should be very good. Now that the movie is so successful, he is very happy for Ryan Coogler. Zhang Ran walked over and said with a smile: "Boy, I heard many people say that "Frutville Station" is well shot!"
Chapter completed!