By: Tessa Perkins
Québécois wunderkind Xavier Dolan is an extraordinary and prolific director. His fifth film, Mommy, won the jury prize at the 2014 Cannes Film Festival when he was only 25 years old. Two years later his film, It’s Only The End of the World won the Grand Prix at the same festival.
Dolan’s films are so compelling because he has a way of distilling the essence of human emotion in the most complex relationships and transmitting those feelings from screen to audience. Not to mention, his soundtracks are phenomenal.
His first film, J’ai tué ma mère (I Killed My Mother), is a partially autobiographical account of a young gay man’s troubled relationship with his mother. From this first film, Dolan’s preoccupation with mother figures has persisted, most predominantly in Mommy, but also in his most recent work, Juste la fin du monde (It’s Only the End of the World).
Currently in production and set to be released in 2018 is Dolan’s English-language debut titled The Death and Life of John F. Donovan. Dolan wrote the script with Jacob Tierney, and the film is the story of Donovan (Kit Harington), an actor whose private life is exposed by a gossip columnist (Jessica Chastain). The film will also star Susan Sarandon, Kathy Bates, Jacob Tremblay, and Natalie Portman.
