When Snow Melts It Turns Green premiered on the third day of the Venice Film Festival.
After all, it was a film personally invited by the artistic director – and one that Venice had snatched away from Cannes, no less. The organizers therefore gave it all the pomp and circumstance it deserved on the red carpet. Even before the day of the premiere, rumors had already been circulating that this director or that superstar would be attending the screening. Any one of those names, taken on its own, was enough to be instantly recognizable.
The Venice red carpet was particularly friendly to fans who had come to catch a glimpse of their idols. They were separated from the stars only by a waist-high barrier, and as long as you arrived early enough to secure a spot in the very front row, you could even interact with them at close range. With the rumors spreading in such convincing detail and the anticipation already built to such a fever pitch, by ten o’clock that morning, every spot along the front row had already been claimed.
There was a seven-hour time difference between China and Italy. At four in the afternoon, when the premiere red carpet began, it was eleven at night back in China. After a long day of work, people were settling into bed after washing up, idly scrolling through their phones – and When Snow Melts It Turns Green smoothly climbed to the peak of online buzz.
A vivid red carpet stretched across the front of the Palazzo del Cinema, setting off the white classical architecture beautifully. In truth, it was not particularly grand or imposing – perhaps not even as spectacular as the red carpets of some domestic fashion magazines or film festivals. But with the eyes of filmmakers from around the world upon it, Ying Yin’s heartbeat still tightened ever so slightly in the instant before she stepped out of the car.
The official sponsor provided the courtesy cars, and all guests received the same treatment. Surrounded by hundreds of cameras and the live broadcast cameras of Italian television, Ying Yin stepped gracefully out of the back seat of a Mercedes, one hand holding her clutch.
Her gown was breathtaking.
A pale jade-green, strapless dress of chiffon, it had no hoop skirt beneath it – only just the right balance of softness and airy volume. As she stepped out of the car, her face tilted slightly to one side, while her spine and neck curved in a gentle, graceful line, her shoulder blades spreading like the wings of a butterfly. So much smooth skin, thin and luminous in the fading light.
Dusk had fallen. Against the black courtesy car and the crimson carpet, she looked like a lotus rising from clear water, like spring in the south.
Li Shan had arrived in the same car. He walked around the back of it and waited at her side, then led her towards the entrance.
“Ready?”
Even amid the shutter clicks ringing through the twilight, Li Shan’s aged voice came through with remarkable clarity.
Ying Yin drew in a quiet breath. By the time she exhaled, she had already slipped effortlessly into her familiar smile.
At the other end of the red carpet, a presenter from a well-known Italian television station stood before the cameras with a microphone in hand.
“Bringing up the finale of tonight’s red carpet is the cast and crew of When Snow Melts It Turns Green. Actress Ying Yin, now thirty years old, is appearing in the main competition on the Lido for the second time. She has an extensive record at the world’s major A-list film festivals, with films she has starred in selected for major competitions on four occasions. Among them, Goodbye, Angela won the Palme d’Or at Cannes. A beautiful, talented and charismatic actress who enjoys enormous fame in China, we look forward to seeing her latest work.”
After spending ample time in the media area posing for photographs, Ying Yin finally reached the main entrance of the Palazzo del Cinema. She descended the steps and walked over to the barrier.
Although prices for everything in Venice – food, accommodation, transport, you name it – soared to astronomical levels during the festival, quite a few Chinese students still came from all across Europe to attend. As soon as Ying Yin approached, they began screaming and jumping in disbelief, calling her name in Chinese. The commotion was enough to put the security guards on alert.
Ying Yin waved to them in greeting. She wore several pieces of high jewelry stacked on her fingers, yet neither her wedding ring nor the pink diamond on her ring finger was in the least overshadowed.
The fans held their posters and autograph books high above their heads. Ying Yin took a marker and, signing with practiced ease, casually asked as though making conversation, “Did you all get tickets?”
“No!”
They were so excited that what should have been a regretful answer instead sounded completely righteous.
Ying Yin froze for a moment. Tilting her head, she instinctively went, “Huh?”
A short video taken from the back captured the moment. When it made its way back to China, the comments were filled with:
[So cute!]
The fans were laughing and crying at the same time as they stumbled over themselves trying to explain.
“The premiere was impossible to get tickets for! The ticketing system is complete rubbish!”
Ying Yin laughed. “It’s okay. There are more screenings afterwards.”
“Yinyin, Yinyin! Look at me! Look at me!”
A young woman raised her compact camera, wanting to take a photo with her.
Ying Yin obligingly leaned over to look into the lens, and before long, several of the girls had squeezed themselves into the frame. Once they had taken the photo, they all asked almost in unison, “Didn’t Mr. Shang come and walk the red carpet with you?”
Ying Yin continued signing, her gaze lowered. At that, she smiled. “When would he ever walk a red carpet?”
“He would!” they all shouted together. “He was so good at the Galaxy Awards!”
Ying Yin handed the marker back to one of them and glanced up. “He’s waiting for me inside.”
After signing a few more autographs for overseas fans, Ying Yin returned to the red carpet, where she joined the rest of the main cast and crew for a brief television interview. The questions were all the usual formalities – how it felt to be back in Venice, what they hoped for from the festival, and so on. As always, Ying Yin answered with perfect grace.
She did not yet possess that level of international star power abroad, and her résumé was still relatively short. Italian viewers listening to the coverage over dinner might suddenly look up without knowing anything else about her – remembering only that this Chinese face was almost absurdly beautiful.
…
A little after seven, the red carpet came to an end, and the cast and crew took to the stage under the introduction of the artistic director, Dafu.
The historic Sala Grande, with its 1,032 seats, was completely full. The lights dimmed to a solemn hush, and as the filmmakers appeared onstage, the low buzz of conversation quickly subsided, replaced by spontaneous applause. The audience noticed that the leading actress was dressed in jade green – a fitting echo of the film’s title, lending the occasion a certain understated elegance.
Up until the very last moment, Shang Shao had still been on the phone discussing business. The applause rose around him like a tide, and his business partner on the other end heard it.
The other party was the first to laugh. “Sounds like I shouldn’t keep Mr. Shang from watching his film.”
Shang Shao curved his lips slightly, exchanged a few more pleasantries, and ended the call. He then switched his phone to Do Not Disturb.
He had declined both the organizers’ hospitality and Tiwen’s arrangements, instead asking Uncle Kang to purchase a ticket for him. Lin Cunkang must have put some thought into it; otherwise, his seat would not have been so perfectly positioned in the middle. This was unlike the preview screening of Justice Prevails, where the audience had not all been formally dressed. Here, everyone had come in suits or evening wear. Among them, Shang Shao still carried his usual air of refinement, but at least he no longer looked quite so out of place.
As the final wave of applause died away, the lights in the auditorium dimmed, and the enormous screen lit up.
An industrial city in southern China.
The roar of traffic came before the image itself. From the sound alone, the audience could almost see the blazing heat of midday, almost smell the dust mingled with exhaust fumes.
Yin Xueqing walked out of the hospital, crumpled her examination report into a ball, and threw it into a rubbish bin by the roadside.
Two seconds later, she turned back.
Like an elderly woman rummaging through bins for recyclables, she fished her own diagnosis back out.
She smoothed it flat.
Smoothed it against the palm of her hand, over and over, her mouth twisting again and again. She stared at it for a while longer before suddenly tearing it apart in one decisive motion. A thick stack of white scraps fluttered down, scattering into the mouth of the rubbish bin, which reeked of rotting fruit.
This was the first time Shang Shao had watched the entire film from beginning to end.
The last time, on the yacht, he had arrived halfway through and left before it was over. Afterwards, he had smoked a cigarette fiercely, then spent the entire night alone in his study practicing calligraphy.
Strangely enough, this time, having watched the film attentively from the very beginning, he no longer connected the woman on the screen with Ying Yin.
It was not like when he had watched Li Meijian, when seeing the way she looked at Shen Ji had made him jealous, stirring in him an indescribable anguish and a fierce sense of crisis.
Instead, he watched the story unfold – the flowing images, the vivid breaths of the characters – and, like everyone else in the audience, found himself frowning and holding his breath.
Sometimes his mind drifted, but what he thought about was how a particular scene had originally been filmed. Remembering those moments, a gentle, knowing smile would appear on his face.
And sometimes his heart would seize up.
It really would.
He would think of Lunar New Year’s Eve, and of the dangerous moment she had faced on set.
An hour and a half later.
To the sustained, thunderous applause at the end of the screening, Shang Shao rose to his feet along with the rest of the theatre. He pulled the dark red pocket square from his suit and laid it over his palm.
His palm was covered in a thin sheen of sweat.
The roar of applause surged like a tide, sweeping over the semicircular tiers, over his impeccably dressed figure, and beneath the now-bright lights and red curtains, rushing towards the stage – towards Ying Yin, dressed in light, flowing green.
She bowed in acknowledgement, then joined in the applause herself. The warmth in her eyes and the smile on her lips were equally moving.
The premiere was followed by a press conference, and after that came the after-party, attended by major media outlets, distributors, and industry figures from both China and abroad.
For an ambitious film, attending overseas film festivals was no small expense. Accommodation and travel for a large team, wardrobes, transportation, red carpets, entertaining guests – millions of dollars could disappear in the blink of an eye. And for a film intending to use Venice as its first outpost before pressing further into the North American awards season, this was only the beginning.
Ying Yin still had no idea about Tiwen’s plans or Shang Qingye’s sponsorship, and had always treated the idea of an Oscar campaign as something of a joke.
The press conference had barely ended before she hurried off impatiently. The click of her high heels echoed through the long corridor, gradually quickening – until they came to an abrupt stop.
She paused for a few seconds, catching her breath, then pushed open the door to the private lounge reserved exclusively for her that evening.
Shang Shao was indeed inside.
A man who wasn’t allowed to smoke.
So he could only sit on the sofa, idly pinching an unlit cigarette between his fingers. One hand rested against the back of the sofa, supporting his head. His eyes were lowered, and he looked utterly languid and relaxed. His black suit jacket had been tossed aside. It was impossible to tell whether he had fallen asleep or was simply resting with his eyes closed.
Even when he heard the door open and her footsteps approaching, he didn’t open his eyes.
Not until Ying Yin threw herself into his arms.
“Was it really that bad? Bad enough to put you to sleep?” Ying Yin teased, kneeling on one knee between his legs.
Only then did Shang Shao open his eyes. His slightly cool fingers rested against the smooth skin of her bare back, while his other hand gently brushed the corner of her lips.
“No.”
Ying Yin’s gauzy skirt fell in layer upon layer, now all gathered into a soft heap between them. The jade green looked especially vivid under the lights. Shang Shao lowered her face slightly and curled his lips into the faintest smile.
“Why did it take you so long to come back?”
“Not long at all. It’s only been twenty minutes.” Ying Yin was still slightly out of breath. “And I ran back here as fast as I could.”
Shang Shao smiled, then asked, contradicting himself, “Alright. Then why did you come back so quickly?”
“Because I was worried about you.” Ying Yin caught his hand and pressed it against her cheek. Her tone was mockingly sarcastic in an adorably exaggerated way. “Last time, you only watched half the film, then went to the study and practiced calligraphy for ages. There’s no study here, and no calligraphy brushes either. I was afraid you’d book an overnight flight and disappear.”
Shang Shao laughed softly as he looked at her, his gaze deep and gentle. “I’m not that fragile. Nor is my taste in films that poor.”
“But you didn’t come looking for me after it ended.”
She meant on WeChat.
Shang Shao took both her hands in his. “This is your moment. A moment that belongs to you alone. I shouldn’t take it away from you.”
Ying Yin leaned into his arms, resting her cheek against his chest. “Then tell me now.”
Shang Shao fell silent for a moment. When he spoke, his voice carried the resonance of his chest, travelling straight into Ying Yin’s heart.
“Unparalleled, my Best Actress.”
The final four words struck the strings in Ying Yin’s heart. She pressed her lips together as a rush of heat surged through her body. When she lifted her face, she spoke in a tiny voice, sounding somewhere between a complaint and a mumble. “…I can’t handle hearing that!”
For a moment, Shang Shao didn’t understand what she meant. Then he broke into a smile and asked innocently, “Why not?”
Ying Yin simply could not bring herself to explain why. She could only wrap her arms more tightly around his waist and bury her face in the hollow of his neck.
“It’s nothing. Nothing…”
Shang Shao was left both at a loss and amused. His hands settled against her shoulders and back as he lowered his head to look at her.
“Do you think I wasn’t sincere? I meant every word.”
Ying Yin made a muffled sound through her nose and shook her head, rubbing it against his neck.
Whenever she acted like this, it meant she was embarrassed. Shang Shao had seen through that from the very first day they met.
Suddenly, he understood.
His breath deepened as he leaned close to her ear. “Alright. I get it. You think I don’t say enough sweet things to you.”
He says plenty!
Ying Yin was just about to deny it when Shang Shao added pointedly, “Shall I make up for it tonight when we get back?”
…
With instant communication, news of the premiere’s explosive reception made its way back to China without any delay.
At three o’clock in the morning, Beijing time, the first reviews began appearing on the Chinese internet.
One journalist wrote a long review on their phone right there at the venue:
[Just finished the premiere of When Snow Melts It Turns Green. A few of us veteran reporters stood together smoking afterwards, all of us silent. This is my twelfth year covering Venice. Other people think this is a cushy job – a taxpayer-funded holiday – but after coming here year after year, it’s hard to say whether I’m travelling or coming home.
Except it doesn’t feel as welcoming as home. Mestre is too far away, accommodation is too expensive, and if you take the wrong vaporetto in the morning, getting up early ends up being for nothing. To put it crudely, covering a film festival is a lot like making films: sometimes you go to enormous lengths, only to discover that the only person you’ve moved is yourself.
Self-indulgence is a trap, especially for male filmmakers. Even someone as formidable as Li Shan, as cold and unsparing as Li Shan, has a few moments in When Snow Melts It Turns Green where he skirts dangerously close to that trap. But somehow, just when he seems about to fall in, he gets pulled back out again.
Alright. That’s the one and only criticism I have of When Snow Melts It Turns Green. From here on out, it’s nothing but praise.
It’s so good. The core story is actually very simple. No spoilers, but neither is it some predictable tale about a man rescuing a fallen woman. I should say that neither the camera nor the ending is really concerned with “saving” anyone. From beginning to end, the true highlight is Yin Xueqing herself as a character.
What pulls Li Shan back from the edge of cliché is Ying Yin’s performance. We already knew she was good, that she was talented. But in this role, she has undergone a complete transformation. This is what happens when an actor encounters the role they were destined to play. Thinking back to what she said at the press conference about a ‘mountain-shaking, tsunami-like force’, I feel as though I’m beginning to understand what she meant.
When Yin Xueqing first appears, she is a prostitute. Beneath that seductive manner, trained over years and years of flattering and pleasing men, there is a fierce, worldly vitality to her. She looks like she could slap some deadbeat john across the face and yell: “You’ve got the nerve to come here and then fucking not pay?!”
(Just kidding. There’s no scene like that.)
Later, she seems as though she has been washed clean by snow, becoming purer layer by layer. You can almost see the layers of grime falling away from her – the filthy but hardened shell on the outside being washed off, revealing something inside that is pure, new, and soft. And that softness is, inevitably, going to be hurt. Neither loving nor being loved can protect her.
It’s difficult to imagine how Ying Yin managed to convey all these layers with such precision. Her performance feels utterly natural, yet completely masterful. The sheer force of it is so powerful that, while watching, you feel as though you’ve been drawn into her own field of gravity. You breathe with her emotions; your fate rises and falls with hers. I’d say she has a very good chance of winning an award.]
A female film critic also wrote about it, but from an entirely different perspective:
[Ying Yin made her debut in Floating Flowers, which caused a sensation at the Turin International Film Festival that year. Then came The Bitter Beauty, which received a wave of praise at its Berlin screening, and now When Snow Melts It Turns Green. It’s hard to believe that a Chinese actress would choose to defy convention for a third time over the course of a career spanning more than a decade.
These three female characters actually have nothing in common. Their only shared point is that all three directors possessed the ambition to explore emotion through desire. Whether desire is portrayed well or badly is not the actor’s responsibility – it rests entirely with the director. What is beautiful, what is intrusive, what is necessary, and what is merely the director taking the easy way out – the audience can tell perfectly well.
What is remarkable about the more explicit scenes in When Snow Melts It Turns Green is that they strike a balance that is just right, like balancing a screw upright on a steel wire. Perhaps that comes from Li Shan’s clarity of mind, or perhaps something else. At the press conference after the screening, Li Shan also admitted that they had filmed many scenes that ultimately went unused. He and the editor had been continually cutting things away. I believe something must have happened on set. Otherwise, if this process of subtraction had been so easy, he wouldn’t have needed to go all the way to Hong Kong to get the project approved.
When Snow Melts It Turns Green is a special film to me, and its subject matter feels new as well. At certain moments, it feels more terrifying than a horror film. When you realize that what you are seeing on screen is as commonplace in real life as eating and drinking, the horror becomes something so absurdly chilling that it makes you laugh. Whether Yin Xueqing is innocent or not, pure or not, whether she loves or is loved, whether she sells her body or not – none of it changes the fundamental fact that she is being watched.
And yet, within the film, she undergoes a clearly defined transformation of identity. It turns like the Eight Trigrams Formation, black and white folding into one another. Can you really say that you do not occupy either side of it? The world is vast, the snowfields boundless – there are no eyes anywhere, and there are eyes everywhere.
The applause at the end lasted for about five minutes, but honestly, I wanted nothing more than to rush outside immediately and let the warm sea breeze hit me. This film was too cold.]
Of course, these were all written by film journalists. Although they were informal pieces dashed off in the moment rather than polished professional reports, they were still highly credible and offered a strong indication of the film’s reception.
And the reactions from ordinary audience members were much more straightforward:
[So good! I thought an artsy film made with awards in mind would be really dull, but the whole thing was incredibly moving. There wasn’t a single moment when my attention wandered.]
[It’s incredible. There was basically no deliberate emotional manipulation at all, but when the applause started at the end, I realized I’d been crying the whole time. Once I left the Palazzo del Cinema, I just started sobbing uncontrollably. I wanted to sneak a poster out with me (just kidding).]
[The male lead didn’t attend the red carpet. So damn cool. He has a face made for cinema, and Li Shan really does have an eye for aesthetics.]
[Ying Yin delivered the best performance we’ve ever seen.]
[The media reaction after the screening was overwhelmingly enthusiastic, completely dispelling the slump of the previous two days. Venice had looked like it was doomed to flop this year, but for now, it can hold off on that.]
[It’s still questionable whether it will get a theatrical release in mainland China, but this will be a film whose name will still be remembered ten years from now.]
[It was after the scene where Yin Xueqing bathes in the snow that she became a legend. From there, she just kept reaching new heights all the way to the ending… Even several minutes after the cast and crew had taken their final bows, I still couldn’t reconcile myself with the existence of Ying Yin. I couldn’t accept that she could be so beautiful, healthy, and radiant.]
[She really knows how to act. It’s locked in. This one is absolutely locked in.]
Quite a few people from the industry, as well as friends, were following the premiere’s reception, and Ying Yin’s phone kept vibrating nonstop. She was rushing to change for the dinner while also answering calls, with more things demanding her attention than she had hands for, so she could only enlist Shang Shao’s help.
Actually, Chu Anni and Junyi were right outside the door. But with the married couple inside together, going in themselves would only have made them feel like unnecessary third wheels.
Shang Shao tossed aside that precious cigarette – the one he had been using merely to satisfy his craving – and devoted himself wholeheartedly to waiting on Ying Yin. He took off her necklace and earrings, undid the fastenings of her dress, removed the boning, and finally brought over the gold evening gown that had been pressed earlier.
It was a spaghetti-strap design, with a long invisible zip running down the back. Still wearing her high heels and too lazy to take them off, Ying Yin wrapped both arms around his shoulders and stepped into the dress, one foot after the other.
She continued responding to the person on the phone, but after a while, something seemed to occur to her. She pressed her lips together, suppressing a laugh.
Standing in front of her, Shang Shao held her in his arms, both hands reaching around to her waist as he slowly drew up the zip while watching her face.
Once it was done, he leaned close to her ear. “What are you laughing at?”
Ying Yin ended the call and, taking advantage of the situation, teased him. “You look just like a sales associate at a luxury boutique.”
The male sales assistants at those luxury stores were all impeccably dressed too -watches, cologne, ties, every detail perfectly in place. Tall and well-proportioned, they spoke in gentle, polished tones and would also attend to their female customers with meticulous care, crouching down to arrange the hems of their gowns or their jewelry.
Shang Shao lifted a finger and lightly tapped her on the forehead. A faint, knowing smile played on his lips. “Then, madam, if you’re satisfied with my service, shouldn’t there be some sort of reward?”
…
Chu Anni saw her outside the door and looked her over for a moment before pulling out a lipstick.
She didn’t mean anything by it. Ying Yin had simply been a little careless touching up her own makeup. But the heat had yet to fade from Ying Yin’s face, and, in a classic case of protesting too much, she gave an awkward little cough.
“I got held up on the phone for a while…”
Her voice carried through the thin door, and Shang Shao heard every word clearly. He smiled faintly to himself, amused by the way she became so guileless and adorably awkward around people she knew well.
Chu Anni raised her eyes and asked with a smile, “Is Mr. Shang not accompanying you to the dinner?”
Their voices and footsteps gradually faded into the distance.
“No. He said this is our occasion.”
Chu Anni immediately understood.
“Mr. Shang is worried about stealing your thunder.”
Capital and high society were inseparable; every salon and banquet ultimately amounted to an exchange between old money and new. Shang Shao had no interest in trading business cards. He was here to accompany his wife on a work trip. As far as he was concerned, anyone other than Ying Yin was off the table.
“I was scrolling through Weibo just now. Quite a few Chinese media outlets and film fans are already saying very positive things about it. Everyone keeps saying they didn’t expect it,” Chu Anni said.
Junyi nodded enthusiastically too, her eyes lighting up.
Once they reached the banquet hall, after Ying Yin had spent some time mingling and making the rounds, Zhuang Tiwen found a moment to come over and say the same thing.
“I even got a call from Mr. Ke earlier,” Ying Yin said with an exasperated smile. “You lot have already repeated exactly the same thing to me several times, one after another.”
Tiwen clinked her champagne glass against Ying Yin’s – Tiwen was drinking alcohol, while Ying Yin was still sticking to plain water.
“I was worried they’d focus on the more explicit scenes. I was so nervous when I opened Weibo. Thankfully, I was worrying over nothing.”
Ying Yin shook her head. She had more experience than Tiwen, and with that came a little more clarity. “Anyone willing to travel all this way just to see the premiere is either a professional journalist or a serious film fan. They’re going to look at the film from a more objective and multifaceted perspective.”
Then she smiled. “The answer sheet has already been handed in, so stop thinking about it. Once this is over, go back and get a good night’s sleep. We can go shopping tomorrow?”
This was Tiwen’s first real venture in the industry, and she was already carrying a huge amount of debt. One wrong move and she might end up working for her cousin for the rest of her life. How could she possibly sleep easy?
She laughed helplessly. “Until Dafu or the jury gives Li Shan some kind of hint, I’m afraid I won’t be able to sleep properly.”
There was an unwritten rule at film festivals: when a film was considered a likely award winner, the jury and organizers would usually send some sort of signal, either openly or discreetly. Sometimes they would even privately ask the filmmakers to stay until the final day for the closing ceremony. If no such hint came for a while, the cast and crew could start packing their bags and leave.
This year was shaping up to be a particularly strong year for actresses. The nominated films had all come in with serious momentum.
The Austrian actress Defu was an Oscar winner for Best Supporting Actress and had also won Best Actress in Berlin. The Korean actress Zheng Yunmin was hailed as the goddess of Chungmuro. And Taris from Iran was widely regarded as an overlooked contender for Best Actress. This year, all eyes were on the Volpi Cup for Best Actress, and the opening film, Between Advance and Retreat, starred her. Although Between Advance and Retreat had not received particularly favorable reactions – the general consensus among critics was that it was sleep-inducing, with the character also lacking sufficient development – her performance itself was not the problem.
More devastatingly, there was not a single Chinese face on this year’s jury. That meant that when the final votes were cast, there would be no “one of their own” there to argue passionately for When Snow Melts It Turns Green.
In fact, the moment Venice announced the films selected for its various sections back in July, the full jury lineup was finally revealed as well. When Li Shan saw the list, he first fell silent, then gave a bitter smile. Finally, he shook his head and let out a sigh.
“Dafu really isn’t playing fair.”
Winning at the Big Three film festivals is all about fighting tooth and nail for it. By now, this was almost common knowledge. Whether there was someone “on your side” among the jury members mattered enormously.
If you had someone on your side, they could fight for your film to the bitter end. At the very least, you could aim for a technical or screenplay award; at best, the Golden Lion, Silver Lion, or Volpi Cup was not an impossible dream. Without someone on the jury in your corner, however, it was much harder to say.
Film festivals were not a neutral, ownerless territory. Nationality, skin color, ethnicity, culture, economics, and politics all played a role. There had been more than one instance in history of a jury president going against the majority to fiercely defend a film from their own country.
The Venice main competition jury consisted of one president and six members. Most of their names were unfamiliar to ordinary film fans. There was the German director Mattel serving as president; British playwright Kent; Argentine cinematography master Rodriguez; American actor Hogg; Austrian director Ludewin… The only East Asian face was Korean.
Although no one said it outright, everyone on the film’s team had already mentally prepared themselves for an early trip home.
But –
With the main competition now past its halfway point, When Snow Melts It Turns Green was leading the ratings in both Chinese-language festival dailies and international trade publications.
![The No. 1 Hunfen King in the Entire Server [Interstellar]](https://i1.wp.com/lazygirltranslations.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/unnamed-5.jpg?resize=151,215 "The No. 1 Hunfen King in the Entire Server [Interstellar]")
