Chapter 24 Experimental Film Group
On the other hand, after Liu Zhou left, Jia Zhangke's table fell silent for a moment.

"Are young people nowadays so crazy?" Someone spoke up, breaking the silence.

This person is called Wang Hongwei, a classmate of Jia Zhangke and also from the Department of Literature of Beijing Film Academy. He is also the leading actor in "Xiao Shan Goes Home".

The students from the Department of Literature of Beijing Film Academy this year were more thoughtful. They felt that the fifth generation of directors were becoming more and more "commercial". At the same time, in order to realize their dream of making movies, they formed a "Beijing Film Academy Youth Experimental Film Group".

The main members of this film group are more than a dozen classmates in their class, and the core are Jia Zhangke, Wang Hongwei and Gu Zheng, who are also the founders of the film group.

After two or three years of development, Jia Zhangke and his team, which could not even be called a makeshift team, finally produced the short film "Xiaoshan Goes Home".

"Xiao Shan Goes Home" won an award, but the film group is basically about to disband.

Because of a very realistic problem, they are facing graduation this year.

You can have a lot of ideas when you are in school, but in the end you still have to face life.

This is when Jia Zhangke came up with the idea of ​​making a real movie. He didn't want the film crew to disband like that, he truly loved movies.

"Maybe he is not crazy, maybe he really has the ability." said the person who spoke Cantonese.

This person is Yu Liwei, he is a photographer and also a director.

There are several very famous duos in the mainland film industry, such as the two Zhangs of Zhang Yimou and Zhang Weiping, and the comedy duo of Feng Dapao and Ge You, which are quite famous.

Another less well-known but classic combination is Jia Zhangke and Yu Liwei.

When talking about Jia Zhangke's success, Yu Liwei is one person who cannot be avoided. Whether it is his "Hometown Trilogy" or the award-winning films that followed, they were all directed by Yu Liwei.

When Yu Liwei was the director, Jia Zhangke was his producer.

The two people have the same artistic pursuits and consistent styles. The content of their films focuses on ordinary people today. Jia Zhangke's feelings for his hometown and Yu Liwei's search for rootlessness in various places form a good complement.

Jia Zhangke and Yu Liwei are a typical example of mutual achievement. They have been working together for more than 20 years and have never fallen out, let alone parted ways.

Perhaps it was destined by God that these two people met. Jia Zhangke took "Xiao Shan Goes Home" to Hong Kong to participate in the competition, and Yu Liwei also took his short film "Beautiful Soul" to participate in the competition.

The two met at this Hong Kong independent short film and video competition. It can be said that they hit it off right away. No, it should be said that they were like-minded.

The two founded Hutong Film Production Company at the end of last year.

This time Jia Zhangke wanted to make a feature film, and Yu Liwei helped him raise funds.

Since Yu Liwei is from Hong Kong and has most of his connections in Hong Kong, he has been helping Jia Zhangke to attract investment in Hong Kong, but it has not been very smooth.

At present, the project of "Xiao Wu" is really short of funds, the actors have not been decided, and the script is not yet available, but it is only a rough outline.

"Anyway, I don't believe that young man can afford to invest, unless his family is rich."

"Whether he asks his family for money or not, as long as the money is clean, I think it's fine."

At this moment, both of them looked at Jia Zhangke, who had been silent.

Jia Zhangke took a sip of wine and said:

"Let's all try to look for him again. If we can't find him, we can talk about it later. As for that Liu Zhou, let's look at him one last time."

"Okay, I'll go to the Film Development Council in Hong Kong and have a look. My short film received funding from the Development Council last year. I wonder if I can apply for funding again this year."

"Thank you for your hard work, Old Yu."

"It's not that hard, everything is for the movie." "Yes, everything is for the movie!"

……

After returning to school, Liu Zhou spent three days organizing the remaining manuscript of "Twinkle Twinkle Star" and then sent it to "Mengya" magazine.

The next day after sending the manuscript, Liu Zhou received a whole box of letters from readers sent by editor Qu He. It was estimated that there were thousands of letters.

After returning to the dormitory, Liu Zhou realized for the first time the inconvenience of living in the dormitory, but there was nothing he could do as he did not have enough money now. When he had more money, Liu Zhou planned to move out.

So many letters naturally aroused the curiosity of his roommates, but Liu Zhou just brushed them off.

They knew that Liu Zhou was not telling the truth, but they didn't say much. Everyone has their own secrets. They were just a little curious. Of course, there were also some weird ones.

Liu Zhou ignored all this and instead spent some time every day reading letters from readers.

The contents of the letters were all kinds of strange. Some asked him to have a happy ending, some threatened Liu Zhou to update faster, some discussed the plot with him, some asked for photos, and of course there were also some who scolded him for writing rubbish.

For the first time, Liu Zhou intuitively felt what readers thought of the book he wrote.

At first, Liu Zhou felt very curious about this and wanted to reply to every letter, but when he saw so many letters in the box, he had to give up.

Finally, I picked out forty or fifty letters and wrote replies to these readers.

But just writing these forty or fifty letters made Liu Zhou's hands sore, and he felt it was more tiring than writing novels.

This made Liu Zhou sigh that online literature in later generations is better, as it is very convenient for authors and readers to communicate.

By the time Liu Zhou finished dealing with these things, the new semester had already started for more than a week.

On this day, the school also officially announced the notice of the basketball competition among the eight major art schools in Beijing. At the same time, Liu Zhou was informed by his class teacher, Lao Huang, that he had been selected for the school basketball team.

Liu Zhou was not shy about this and felt it was his duty to bring honor to the school.

This school basketball team was also formed temporarily because the juniors and seniors are quite busy and have to work hard for the future, so the basketball team mainly selects players from the freshmen and sophomores.

As regulars on the basketball court, Liu Zhou and Liu Ye were selected directly without any tryouts.

However, the basketball game starts in April, and the weather in Beijing is still relatively cold at this time, which is not very suitable for playing games.

Moreover, the time is set for April, which is also a period of training for the basketball teams of major universities. Since such a big lineup has been made, it would not be good if the performance was too ugly.

Liu Ye apparently also learned the news, and came to Liu Zhou's dormitory with a smile on his face that night.

"Haha, you said you were unsure when I asked you to join the basketball team. Now the school has directly asked you to join the basketball team. You don't have anything to say now, right?"

"I can't help it. Dean Xu personally invited me to have tea, so I have to give him face."

"Just brag. Dean Xu would invite you for tea? He may not even know who you are."

"Forget it if you don't believe it."

"I definitely don't believe it, but don't worry, just be my Pippen and I'll lead you to win the championship!"

"I'll let you show off for a while."

"Haha, don't forget, the basketball team has its first training this Saturday."

(End of this chapter)