Chapter 132 – The Beauty Mark on Her Chest
Park City, Utah—the home of the Sundance Independent Film Festival.
Outside, snow and ice blanketed everything, but the freezing wind couldn't cool the heat of cinema burning inside.
In a warm hotel bedroom, Sophie Marceau lay against Aaron's chest, her soft body curled around him.
"I've heard the Sundance Film Festival is quite famous now, isn't it?" she asked, eyes half-lidded.
Aaron chuckled, running his fingers through her long brown hair.
"Even in France you hear about it?"
"Of course," she said.
"That year when Sex, Lies, and Videotape swept through Cannes, we all knew about it.
But the film's real origin… was the Sundance Independent Film Festival.
That's where Steven Soderbergh made his name."
To Sophie, these auteur-driven indie festivals were far more alluring than big commercial blockbusters.
"Soderbergh, yeah…" Aaron's voice carried a hint of nostalgia.
"He used to be one of my clients. I was the one who sold Sex, Lies, and Videotape for a high price."
He exhaled softly.
"He brought his second feature, Kafka, to screen this year. A French-language drama."
Aaron shook his head.
After the brilliance of Sex, Lies, and Videotape, Kafka was a disappointment—flat, confused, and artistically muddled.
Even though Dawnlight now had its own distribution network, he had no intention of buying everything in sight.
Wasting money on sloppy failures was pointless.
As expected, Kafka made zero ripples at Sundance.
Compared to Dawnlight's entry—Quentin Tarantino's Reservoir Dogs—the difference was night and day.
Bloody, absurd, stylish, darkly humorous, violently charismatic—
Reservoir Dogs exploded the moment it premiered, becoming the most talked-about film of the entire festival.
Tarantino's shocking debut was easily the brightest star of the year.
Sophie propped her chin on her hand, her full, rounded figure shifting invitingly beneath the sheets.
"You've been here two or three days," she teased softly.
"And you haven't bought a single film.
You didn't just come to check how Reservoir Dogs is doing… did you?"
She wasn't wrong.
These days, Sundance mostly attracted indie distributors: Dawnlight, New Line, Miramax, Orion, Samuel Goldwyn, and the like…
Hollywood's six major studios always carry a faint sense of superiority when it comes to independent film festivals—Sundance included.
"These things can't be forced," Aaron murmured as his hand casually brushed over the tiny beauty mark on Sophie Marceau's chest.
That famous mark—
The same one exposed boldly in Andrzej Żuławski's 1989 film My Nights Are More Beautiful Than Your Days, where Sophie fully bared herself in a series of daring love scenes.
A single mole, yet unforgettable to audiences.
"What is it?" Sophie wrapped her arms loosely around Aaron's neck.
"Nothing," he said, pressing a soft kiss to her lips.
"Oh—by the way, Quentin Tarantino once sold a script to director Tony Scott."
Sophie blinked. "Mm?"
"Tony Scott is preparing to make that film. It's called True Romance. I recommended you for the female lead."
The past few years hadn't been kind to Scott.
His high-profile action films—Revenge, Days of Thunder, The Last Boy Scout—had all underperformed, despite A-list stars like Kevin Costner, Tom Cruise, and Bruce Willis.
A streak of failures had shaken Hollywood's trust in him.
So shifting to a gritty action-thriller like True Romance made perfect sense.
Sophie hesitated. "But my French accent…?"
"It's fine. That's easy to work around. And True Romance is an action-thriller—style matters more than accent."
Tarantino's writing, after all, was bold, subversive, and off-beat.
That evening, Aaron and Sophie attended another Sundance party in Park City.
"A lot of promising young directors here…" Aaron commented as they entered.
As one of Hollywood's hottest rising producers, eyes naturally gravitated toward him—especially those of fresh-faced directors and ambitious actors hoping for his attention.
Sophie hid a mischievous smile. "Should I give you two days… so you can comfort a few beautiful souls?"
"Pff—!"
Aaron nearly spat out his drink.
"You think I'm that easy?"
Soon after, Aaron crossed paths with veteran director Robert Altman, who had brought his new film The Player to screen—starring Tim Robbins, financed and distributed by New Line.
"The Shawshank Redemption hasn't started production yet?"
Aaron wondered silently.
It wasn't that Shawshank itself concerned him—but Dawnlight held the rights to Forrest Gump, and seeing Tim Robbins naturally reminded him of that upcoming classic.
Sophie nudged him. "Aaron, Quentin and Brad are coming over."
"Perfect. I can ask whether Tony Scott had him rewrite the script."
When Quentin Tarantino and Brad Grey reached them, Aaron asked directly.
"True Romance? Scott hired other writers to revise it," Tarantino said with a helpless shrug.
"It's my original script, but others are handling the rewrites now."
"Figures," Aaron smiled. He wasn't surprised.
Brad Grey chimed in, "On the bright side, Reservoir Dogs is getting great buzz here. Not huge outside the festival yet, but it's making waves. You've built a fanbase already."
Indeed—Sundance still wasn't widely known to the public, let alone the films screened inside it.
But Reservoir Dogs had caught the attention of actors and cinephiles alike.
"Thanks to the festival's momentum, Dawnlight will put Reservoir Dogs into theaters soon," Brad added.
"Probably similar scale to how we handled Raise the Red Lantern—modest screens, modest marketing."
"Good," Aaron said. "Film festivals like this are the best publicity it'll ever get."
The film was low-budget, with a simple plot, rough settings, no big names, and a nonlinear narrative.
Tarantino's real masterpiece—Pulp Fiction—was the one Aaron truly had his eye on.
As they left the party, Sophie pulled her coat tighter against the cold.
"The Golden Globes must be soon… Are you heading back to Los Angeles?"
Aaron shook his head.
"No. Straight to New York. I need to arrange a few loans with Wall Street. And Scent of a Woman is about to start production."
"Then let me come with you."
Aaron nodded—
But suddenly paused as a figure entered the hotel.
"Oh? A familiar face," he murmured.
Harvey Weinstein.