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Old March 20, 2018, 02:03 PM
Dien Rice Dien Rice is offline
Onwards and upwards!
 
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 3,357
Default Continuation...!

"C" was also a fan of Chinese movies (and also didn't have a drop of Chinese or Asian blood)... Both he and John had deep knowledge, of Chinese films, actors and actresses, directors, and so on...

They were talking about these, and soon it was waaaay over my head, talking about people I'd never heard of...

However, "C" also brought his girlfriend, who I'll call "G"... G is from China, and had recently moved to Australia, though they had been in a long-distance relationship for over 10 years.... They met many years ago, when "C" was at a a film festival in Hong Kong...

Because the other conversation had gone way over my head, I spent most of the evening talking with "G"...

It turns out that "G" had worked in finance in China and Hong Kong. She was interested in working in finance in Australia too, but hadn't yet gotten her foot in the door, as she hadn't been in Australia very long...

I thought I could help her with this - using my marketing skills...

The upshot of the dinner was that, "C"'s company (an Australian company, as I'm in Australia) used to have the distribution rights to "Ip Man" - but the rights had come up for renewal, and they had recently lost them to another company. It turns the company that just bought them was a US company, which bought the Australian rights in anticipation of making money by subsequently licensing the rights to Australian movie streaming companies...

In the end, John negotiated with this US company, and we held our film night. But... an unanticipated disaster!

The day of the movie turned out to have the heaviest local rainfall in about 10 years! Faced with a torrent of rain - most people stayed home!

We still got around 20 people showing up... But that wasn't enough to cover our costs. We ended up losing money - though, after costs, we only lost about $50...

We were going to have another movie night, but as a small operation, we found it a nightmare to negotiate movie screening rights for a fee we could afford. In the end, we abandoned the project...

But... my contact with "G" and offer to help her get a job in finance, opened new doors and new adventures... In the world of finance... And how I got to meet and know dozens of multimillionaires, including many people worth $100m and more...

(To be continued, possibly, if there's any interest...)

- Dien
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Last edited by Dien Rice : March 21, 2018 at 05:15 AM.
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