Chapter 600: Chapter 600

He Jinxia couldn’t believe it. Even she, who hadn’t even thought about winning an award before attending Berlin, felt nervous when she arrived at the award ceremony. Despite constantly telling herself it was impossible to win, she couldn’t help but hope.

Her crew had only received a nomination for the Crystal Bear, and she couldn’t maintain her composure. How much more so for "World," which had been nominated for the Golden Bear Award?

Although Sheng Yan had already won two Movie King trophies, which actor would ever think they have too many trophies?

Especially someone of Sheng Yan’s caliber. He probably looked forward to a grand slam of Movie King awards from the big four film festivals.

He Jinxia typed out a message, then thought better of it and deleted it. She typed a new one and felt it was okay, ready to send, but just then, a message from Sheng Yan came through.

Sheng Yan: "Because ’World’ simply can’t win the Golden Bear. In terms of the script, it’s inferior to ’One’s Loneliness’ and ’Festive Speech.’

Sheng Yan: "In the use of special effects, it’s even less than ’Mist Jungle.’ The standard of ’World’ is about the same as ’Steel City,’ and the character I played didn’t have more breakthroughs than the main characters in the previous two works."

He Jinxia tentatively asked, "So, you thought from the beginning that ’Steel City’ and ’World’ were going to be eliminated?"

Sheng Yan: "Yes, from the moment I got the script, I knew it wasn’t going to win."

He Jinxia couldn’t help frowning, "Then why did you still take on this film?"

Her logic was simple. Sheng Yan would read the script, and he had high standards. He could simply pick an award-winning script to work on.

Sheng Yan: "The highest quality film offered to me last year was ’World.’ As an actor, if you don’t advance, you retreat. If I become increasingly selective just to win awards, I might end up not making a film for three to four years."

Sheng Yan: "Great scripts don’t wait for anyone. The films I want to act in, the directors might not necessarily want me for them. There are many actors as capable as me in the world, and even though I start on the same line as them, various factors might still eliminate me during the race, and I don’t get offered many scripts each year."

Sheng Yan’s lips curled into a faint smile. Ever since he had taken on ’World,’ he had anticipated its ultimate fate at the major film festivals.

He believed that it wasn’t just Berlin. Even the upcoming Cannes, Oscars, and Venice. ’World’ might get nominated for various important awards at each, but the outcome would still be coming up empty, merely making an appearance.

Though he had foreseen this fact long ago, Sheng Yan didn’t feel regretful.

’World,’ overall, was still of good quality. It just wasn’t enough to meet the highest honors in the pantheon of cinema. Compared to other nominated films, ’World’ was still lacking something.

Even so, it wasn’t fair to dismiss ’World’ as entirely without merit. The character "Prince Chen" he portrayed had decent substance and many aspects worth exploring.

Chatting back and forth with Jinxia had erased the slight regret remaining in Sheng Yan’s heart.

Time passed silently, and before either of them realized, it was time to announce the Golden Bear Award.

The host displayed perfect skill in keeping the audience in suspense, having shown the highlights of each film nominated for the Golden Bear on the big screen. Seeing that the host was about to announce— Follow current novels on n0velfire.net

"The film winning the 53rd Berlin Film Festival’s Golden Bear Award is—"

The male host blinked his eyes, then playfully said, "Next, please take a break and wait for the song and dance performance to finish before we announce the awards."

There was a phrase "MMP" on everyone’s mind, but it was debatable whether it was appropriate to say it!

No matter how frustrated everyone felt, they had no choice but to follow the committee’s schedule.

The agonizing ten minutes of song and dance performance went by, and the male and female hosts took the stage again. This time, the audience, especially those watching the male host, looked at him with much "resentment."

The male host also had an astonishingly strong mental fortitude. Under the gaze of many resentful eyes, he smilingly said, "Congratulations to ’One’s Loneliness’ by Elrings for winning the 53rd Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival!"

Without any preamble, the first sentence announcing the award right after the song and dance performance caught everyone by surprise.

The female host repeated the winner of the award afterwards, and only then did everyone snap back to reality. Suddenly, a burst of vigorous applause erupted, and everyone cheered for Elrings!

As an autobiographical art film, it was a surprise but also expected that ’One’s Loneliness’ won the Golden Bear for Elrings.

In the history of Berlin, it wasn’t unprecedented for art films to win the Golden Bear, but since the glorious era a decade ago, in recent years, the Berlin jurors had tended to favor brilliantly conceived films, such as commercial or special effects movies, putting art films at a disadvantage.

Yet, Elrings brought ’One’s Loneliness’ and triumphed over other genres of films. Some perceptive filmmakers had an intuition that perhaps art films might be making a comeback, heralding a new Chapter.

The resurgence of art films also indicated that the audience’s philosophical depth was increasing, which wasn’t a bad thing.

Moreover, as art films don’t overlap with commercial and special effects films, there is no conflict, so their rise won’t alert the other two types of films.

On the contrary, the makers of commercial and special effects films were pleased to see this development, as it allowed for a more diversified selection of movies for audiences, thus boosting the overall movie-going market.

After the Golden Bear was awarded, there were still other awards to be announced, such as the Silver Bear for Best Actress, Best Original Screenplay, and Best Director awards among others.

He Jinxia was most concerned about the recipient of the Golden Bear, and once it was announced, she finally relaxed and stopped feeling anxious.

Because she didn’t care about the other awards, she absentmindedly listened as they were announced. Before long, she felt as if no time had passed when the Berlin Film Festival was already concluding its awards ceremony, and the audience and crew orderly exited the venue.

After the award ceremony, there was a dinner scheduled to take place an hour later.

He Jinxia, due to the rush in the later stages of filming ’Musical Youth,’ could not attend the dinner, as she had to catch a flight to Country M that very evening.

She gave Duan Yu a quick nod before leaving the Berlin Film Festival venue for the hotel.

Shortly after arriving at the hotel, Aunt Rui and her mother also arrived, and the two were happy to see each other.

With three hours to go until the flight and the airport being close to the hotel, needing just an hour to get there, He Jinxia spent the remaining time entirely with the two elderly mothers.