Xavier Dolan

The fifth episode of 'The Art of Directing', presented by actress Cush Jumbo, features Canadian director Xavier Dolan. When he was just 25 years old, Dolan had already written and directed five feature films and won six awards at the Cannes Film Festival. Branded an enfant terrible by critics, his staggering body of work has astonished audiences for nearly a decade with its raw emotion and immense visual flair.
Previously a child actor who grew up in Montreal, Canada, he made his first feature film, I Killed My Mother (2009) when he was just 19 years old. His psychosexual thriller Tom at the Farm (2013), about a copywriter grieving over his dead boyfriend, had numerous critics comparing him to Hitchcock. Mommy (2014) received a twelve-minute standing ovation at its world premiere. Musician and actors have fallen over themselves to work with him. The music video he made for Adele's Hello has been viewed over two billion times. Lea Seydoux, Marion Cotillard and Vincent Cassel all united to make It's Only The End of the World (2016) with him (Lea Seydoux even disrupted the filming schedule of the Bond film Spectre to get it made) and it won Dolan the coveted Grand Jury Prize at Cannes. A pop icon who is adored by critics and audiences alike, his career is filled with surprises. In this episode, Xavier takes us back to his hometown of Montreal in Canada to show us where it all began and gives us a sneak peek at his upcoming film, The Death and Life of John F. Donovan.