Quebecois filmmaker Xavier Dolan is retiring from filmmaking after having directed eight movies and one TV series.
The 34-year-old first rose to fame as a child actor and used the income he made to create the semi-autobiographical acclaimed feature “I Killed My Mother” at the age of just 19.
The film premiered at the Director’s Fortnight program of the 2009 Cannes Film Festival, where it received an eight-minute standing ovation along with winning three awards.
Dolan subsequently was labelled a wunderkind whose career was watched very closely as he delivered a series of acclaimed titles, including the early transgender film “Laurence Anyways,” the carefully constructed Hitchcock-esque thriller play adaptation “Tom at the Farm,” and arguably his magnum opus with 2014’s “Mommy”.
Things took a turn with 2016’s “It’s Only the End of the World”, which scored him his first mixed reviews. His attempt at a major American film with the Kit Harington-led “The Death and Life of John F. Donovan” – which saw its original four-hour cut shrunk to two hours during editing – was released to his most negative reviews to date.
He made a bit of a comeback with “Matthias & Maxime”, which scored good reviews and was released by MUBI in select territories but sadly failed to draw much attention.
Last year he told Journal de Montreal he was considering retiring, saying he “no longer necessarily feel the need to tell stories and to relate to myself” and wants to take time to be with friends and family.
Now, in a new interview with Spanish outlet El Pais (via ES Euro) he says that he’s quitting moviemaking and has become “afraid of a civil war caused by intolerance” which has led to him becoming disillusioned with creating this kind of art:
“I give up filmmaking and directing. I no longer have the desire or strength to commit myself to a project for two years and then hardly anyone sees it. I put too much passion into it to take so many disappointments. It makes me wonder if my filmmaking is bad, and I know it’s not.
I don’t understand what is the point of telling stories when everything around us is falling apart. Art is useless, and dedicating oneself to the cinema a waste of time.”
Dolan most recently shot the series “The Night Logan Woke Up” which first premiered in November last year. He adds that he will still honour a contract with HBO for an English series before hanging up his hat and directing only advertisements.
Whether he’ll still act is not clear, Dolan has had small supporting roles in a variety of films in recent years, including “It: Chapter Two,” “Bad Times at the El Royale,” and “Boy Erased”.
