Xavier Dolan confirms his new film, a mix between horror and comedy

The Quebec filmmaker gave more details about his return during his master class at the Lumière Festival.

Very “remains“, very “mindful“: it is in a wise navy festival outfit that Xavier Dolan greeted the hall of Pathé Bellecour, in Lyon. His first appearance in public, or almost, since 2023 punctuated with declarations about his retirement from cinema.

The details about his next feature film, already written and which he hopes to shoot next year, are not lacking in spice: the film, which will not be a horror film strictly speaking, “was written with horrific aspects or moments” but also “lots of comic elements“.”An amalgamation of several genres.“He also revealed that the story would take place.”in 1895 in the world of the Parisian literary elite and high society, and in the countryside.” Another scoop: the project should be filmed in the North of France – and not in Quebec, a great first.

“This will be the second chapter, the second half of a career that I have slowed down to the point of almost stopping.” he explains. “I know I could never maintain the pace I had before. I was young and I was different“, he further explained (comments translated from English via Variety).

The one who signed his last film in 2019 (Matthias and Maxime), his eighth in ten years, was then asked about his retirement from cinema.

“I get up in the morning, I read, I try to understand the world we live in, and cinema sometimes becomes secondary. Cinema is a way to escape this world, but it is difficult to ignore what is happening in Gaza, what is happening in Lebanon, impossible to ignore the fragility of our environment, and all that that I see around me places my own little artistic gesture out of focus“, he elaborated, choosing his words in his very personal style. “If I waited this long to make another film it's because I no longer had the desire or the energy, and I know that it makes no sense without this passion, this commitment“, he further explained.

Among other obstacles, the challenge of financing films while production costs are still on the rise. Dolan's suggestion: Quebec's position vis-à-vis the Anglo-American hegemonic area doesn't help anything.

“Quebec is an island, a nation. It is an area that survives culturally in tandem with a world and a country that does not resemble it“, he continued, specifying a nuance rarely mentioned by the filmmaker: and almost in contradiction with the one who has always claimed his lineage to Buffy the Vampire Slayer and that his references are perhaps “more television than cinema“, as he had already explained to First. “Culturally it's very complicated for me to make a film that will be appreciated by North Americans“, he added, then referring to the US release of Just the end of the world. “It is a film of inconceivable violence. They perceive this as negative. These characters shout, speak badly, are violent but they are people who suffer, who need to be heard. I perceive this as an expression of the essential incapacity of beings to communicate.“

To the more introspective question of what he would do differently in his career if he could, the great actor director responded enigmatically: “There are certain choices that are difficult to talk about, because it would be indecent to reveal them…“, in a hesitation, before continuing: “I could wish that certain collaborations had led to more generosity, or more inventiveness, but things are as they are, and we must sometimes come to terms with the idea that certain decisions can impact depth, or the lack of it. in depth, from certain films“, leaving the audience guessing who was hiding under this elegant paraphrase.

Then, to the question of friendship, one of the predominant themes of his cinema, Dolan finished by explaining the intricacy of his films and his life.

“It's not something I talk about naturally because I live it. Friendship is my entire existence. All the great love stories that I have experienced are great stories of friendship. Love has always been complicated for me.”

Evoking Matthias and Maximewhere he is tortured by the feelings that bind him to his childhood best friend, he concluded on this relationship between life and artistic process: “It might seem self-centered but I had experienced failures then, or in any case, less joyful situations or less triumphant moments… Matthias and Maxime was a film of reconstruction, of healing“, he said about this Quebec production shot after the big budget film The Death and Life of John F. Donovan. “I surrounded myself with my best friends there. There was a feeling of protection, being in this group of friends, with this character who is fragile, but never defeated.“