Xavier Dolan

At 35 years old, Xavier Dolan has this physical status:

Xavier Dolan-Tadros (born 20 March 1989) is a Canadian actor, writer, editor, costume designer, and voice actor.

He began his career as a commercial actor before directing several arthouse feature films.

I Killed My Mother (J'ai tué ma mère), the director's debut film directorial debut, attracted international attention in 2009 in the Director's Fortnight section. Since 2009, he has produced and directed eight feature films, with the exception of Tom at the Farm, which premiered at the Venice International Film Festival in 2013 — and his first English-language film, The Death & Life of John F. Donovan, which premiered at the 2018 Toronto International Film Festival.

In 2015, he produced the music video for Adele's hit single "Hello." Dolan has received numerous awards for his work, including the Jury Prize at the 2014 Cannes Film Festival for Mommy and the Grand Prix at the 2016 Cannes Film Festival for It's Only the End of the World.

He has also received multiple Canadian Screen Awards and César Awards.

Early life

Dolan was born and raised in Montreal, Quebec. Manuel Tadros, a well-known Egyptian-Canadian actor and singer of Coptic and Lebanese descent, is the son of Geneviève Dolan, a Quebecois tutor, and Manuel Tadros, a highly respected Egyptian-Canadian actor and singer of Coptic and Lebanese descent.

Personal life

Dolan is openly gay, and his first film, I Killed My Mother, is described as semi-autobiographical.

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Career

Dolan's debut, I Killed My Mother (J'ai tué ma mère), which he wrote, produced, and starred in at the age of 19, attracted worldwide notice due to his extensive work as a child actor. He reportedly started writing the script when he was 16 years old. In an interview with Le Soleil, he said that the film was partly autobiographical.

The film was at first funded solely by Dolan, but when the need for more money came, he called Telefilm and the SODEC for subsidies. Any of them turned him down for various reasons. SODEC, who had loved the initiative but refused to finance it due to a too commercial department, had encouraged Dolan to submit it again in a more appropriate "indie" department, which he did. SODEC gave him a $400,000 subsidy in December 2008. All in all, the film cost about $800,000 CAD. According to Dolan, the scheme to obtain funds is "an inefficient funding mechanism that holds Quebec hostage's creative resources."

The film premiered at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival's Fortnight Program, where it received an eight-minute standing ovation and three awards: the Art Cinema Award, the SACD Prize for screenplay, and Prix Regarding Jeunes. It also received a Lumière Award and four Jutra Awards, including Best Film, Best Screenplay, and Most Developed Film Outside Québec, beating Denis Villeneuve's film Polytechnique (2009) in what was described as a "upset."

Dolan later said that the film was "flawed" and that Peter Brunette of The Hollywood Reporter called it "a somewhat uneven film that showcases a lot of talent." Brunette also described the film as "funny and audacious," while Allan Hunter of Screen International said that it had "the sting of shrewdly observed truth."

The film received the Claude Jutra Award (now known as the Canadian Screen Award for Best First Feature) at the Genies, as well as the inaugural $5,000 Jay Scott Prize for emerging talent. I Killed My Mother was selected as Canada's official entry for Best Foreign Language Film for the 2010 Academy Awards by the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) and named one of Canada's Top ten films of the year by the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) but didn't receive a nomination by the academy. Distribution rights were eventually sold to more than 20 countries. Regent Entertainment, the film's U.S. distributor, did not launch it theatrically in the United States until 2013, and once released, it made little money at the box office.

Heartbeats, Dolan's second feature film (Les Amours imaginaires), was funded privately. Two friends are obsessed with the same mysterious young man, and their love lives are chronicled in the film. At the 63e Festival de Cannes in May 2010, it premiered in the Uncertain Regard category, where it received a standing ovation. It was the top prize of the Sydney Film Festival in June and screened at many film festivals throughout 2011, but audiences in non-French-speaking countries were difficult to find audiences. Several Genie awards as well as the AQCC (Québec association of film critics) for Best Film were given.

Laurence Anyways' third film was selected to participate in the Uncertain Regard section of the 2012 Cannes Film Festival. Best Actress was Suzanne Clément's role in the film, which received the section's award for Best Actress. Critics lauded or lauded the film. The film, according to a critic for MTV's The Out Take, which focuses on LGBT films, was "the best film of the year." Despite the accolades, the film was not released commercially for a year. The film struggled at the box office on its first release, and only in Canada, it grossed nearly $500,000.

Dolan's fourth film, according to Dolan, will be an adaptation of Michel Marc Bouchard's "Tom à la ferme." On September 2, 2013, it made its world premiere in the main competition segment at the Venice International Film Festival, winning the FIPRESCI award. Although Tom at the Farm appeared on the festival circuits in 2013, it wasn't until 2015 that it was released in the United States. "No one knows me in the United States," Dolan said in an interview in August 2015 because the films have been released in such an uncomfortable, uneven style, all by different distributors. I don't want to sound pretentious, but it's puzzling."

In the main competition section of the 2014 Cannes Film Festival, Jean-Luc Godard's film Goodbye to Language premiered, Dolan's 2014 film, Mommy, revealed the Jury Prize. (Adieu au langage). Jane Campion was the jury president of the 2014 festival, and Dolan said, after receiving the award, "I'm overwhelmed."

Critics also named the film as Dolan's "most mature" film to date, and it was a revelation in his career as a director. It was his first film to do well at the box office, grossing over $3.5 million domestically in 2014, making it the best-selling film in Quebec for 2014. According to the Montreal Gazette, over a million people attended the film in France. In 2015, Mommy received the César Award for Best Foreign Film.

Dolan's next film was an adaptation of Jean-Luc Lagarce's play Juste La fin du monde, titled It's Only the End of the World. Marion Cotillard, Gaspard Ulliel, Vincent Cassel, Léa Seydoux, and Nathalie Baye appear in the film. In late May 2015, filming began in late May. The film was a official selection for the 2016 Cannes Film Festival in competition for the Palme d'Or, but it did not win.

The film premiered to polarized reactions from festivalgoers and critics, with Vanity Fair calling it "the most disappointing film at Cannes." Variety dubbed it "a cold and deeply disappointing film" in the Hollywood Reporter, and Variety dubbed it "a frequently enthralling dramatic journey." Dolan spoke out against the media's scathing criticism during the festival. Critical commentators, including The Guardian, also praised the film as a "brilliant, stylized, and hallucinatory evocation of family dysfunction."

Dolan said that it's Only the End of the World, his best film and one he's proud of. The film received the Grand Prix and the Ecumenical Jury Prize. It was also screened at the 2016 Toronto International Film Festival in June 2016 and later screened at the Sydney Film Festival in June 2016. On September 21, 2016 a new model of Quebec and France was launched. It's Only the End of the World was released in France on 391 screens, where it debuted at number one at the box office and sold 1,034,477 tickets. It was chosen as Canada's nominee for the 2017 Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. It was nominated in January 2017 for best Foreign Language Film at the 89th Academy Awards in December 2016, but not in January 2017. The film was named to the Toronto International Film Festival's annual Top Ten Film Festival's Top 10 list on December 7, 2016.

Based on a survey of 44 reviews, AlloCiné, a French cinema website, gave the film an average of 3.3 percent, indicating "generally favorable ratings." Rotten Tomatoes, a review group, has a 44% approval rating based on 32 reviews, with an average score of 5.6/10. "It's Only the End of the World is stocked with talent and boasts a tale steeped in conflict, but the end result, according to the site's scathing misfire by writer-director Xavier Dolan, is a sad misfire. The film was given an average score of 48, indicating "mixed or average reviews" at Metacritic, which gives a normalized rating out of 100 to mainstream writers' reviews.

Dolan received the César Awards for Best Director and Best Editing at the 42nd ceremony on February 24, 2017, despite his work on It's Only the End of the World. He also received three Canadian Screen Awards for Best Motion Picture, Best Achievement in Direction, and Best Adapted Screenplay.

Dolan co-wrote the screenplay with Jacob Tierney in March 2013, and he was in pre-production for his first English-language film The Death & Life of John F. Donovan. John F. Donovan (Kit Harington), a Hollywood film actor whose life and career are turned upside down as a result of a gossip columnist (Jessica Chastain) discloses his private conversations with an 11-year-old British fan. Susan Sarandon appears as Donovan's mother and Kathy Bates as his boss. Chastain was removed from the film during post-production, according to Dolan, who revealed it on Instagram, and that the plot had been changed throughout post-production.

At the 2018 Toronto International Film Festival, the film made its world premiere, making it Dolan's first film to premiere at the festival. It received generally critical feedback following its debut at the festival. The film Dolan's "worst" of his career, according to IndieWire. One of five actors appeared in the Guardian, branding it a "dubious mess" in the film. The film was criticized at best by the magazine, according to the magazine. Screen International's more positive review said that the film "may revisit a lot of familiar territory for Dolan," but that "on this occasion, it is good to welcome him home."

Matthias & Maxime was Dolan's eighth film. It's centered on the titular Matthias (played by Gabriel D'Almeida Freitas) and Maxime (played by Xavier Dolan), lifelong friends whose relationship is tested when they perform in a short film that demands they kiss each other, leaving them both questioning their sexual identities as the result awakens their long-dormant feelings for each other.

On May 22, 2019, the film made its international premiere at the Cannes Film Festival. Les Films Séville, a French entrepreneur, released it theatrically on October 9, 2019. Mubi acquired distribution rights to the film in the United States, Ireland, Australia, Latin America, and India in May 2020. The film was included in the annual year-end Canada's Top Ten list in December 2019. At the 22nd Quebec Cinema Awards, the film was nominated for seven awards, including Best Supporting Actor for Funk and Best Editing for Dolan. Best Supporting Actress for Bernard, Best Music for Jean-Michel Blais, and Most Successful Film Outside of Quebec were all awarded.

Dolan was chosen to be on the jury for the main competition segment of the 2015 Cannes Film Festival in 2015. He also produced the music video for Adele's lead single "Hello" earlier this year. The video set a new Vevo record of most views in 24 hours, with over 27.7 million views. The video was also notable for showcasing a video taken in IMAX. For directing the film, Dolan was awarded the Juno Award for Video of the Year.

Dolan appeared in two American films: Boy Erased, opposite Lucas Hedges and Troye Sivan, which premiered at the 2018 Toronto International Film Festival; and Bad Times at the El Royale as a British-accented music producer, Buddy Sunday. He appeared in It Chapter Two, the horror sequel that was published in September 2019. He has also appeared in Lost Illusions, an adaptation of Illusions perdues by Honoré de Balzac directed by Xavier Giannoli.

Dolan confirmed the end of his first TV Drama, The Night Logan Woke Up, based on Michel Marc Bouchard's play of the same name, on December 2021.

Dolan co-owns Sons of Manual, as dolan and producer Nancy Grant.

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