Snubbed Canadian director heads to Cannes, thumbs nose at the Genies

Xavier Dolan and his film J’ai tué ma mere may have been overlooked by the Genies, but the Québécois filmmaker has a much better consolation prize: he’s the only Canadian director showing at the Cannes film festival next month. He’ll be presenting his new project Les amours imaginaires, in which he also stars, but it’s already familiar turf for the 21-year-old.

Dolan, whom both the Star and the Globe tout as a Québécois filmmaking “wunderkind,” won three prizes at last year’s festival for J’ai tué ma mere (the film was also nominated for submitted as Canada’s entry for the foreign language Oscar). Despite the major buzz, the film was shut out of the major categories at this year’s Genies, and Dolan skipped the ceremony in protest.

Still, he was awarded a prize for best first feature, but producer Kevin Tierney (Bon Cop, Bad Cop), who accepted the award on Dolan’s behalf, was openly upset about the snub. “The fact that he only got this award was sort of, like, my reading of it was like being sent to the kiddie table. If you’re going to give this movie the best first film, how do you give another first film 11 nominations?” he said, referring to Polytechnique. “I call it an aberration.”

Looks like that kiddie table will be serving champagne and caviar.

• Howell: Success best revenge for Cannes-bound director [Toronto Star]
• Xavier Dolan’s second film wins spot at Cannes fest [Globe and Mail]
• Polytechnique wins 9 Genies [Global News]