Juste la fin du monde is the latest completed film from the 27-year-old writer director and Cannes veteran, Xavier Dolan. Montreal’s Seville International announced in the spring of 2015 that they were aiming to launch the film at the 2016 Cannes Films Festival, which runs May 11-22.
For this film, Dolan adapted and directed the Jean-Luc Lagarce play of the same name, which starred Dolan’s muse Anne Dorval. It tells the story a writer’s return to his home town after 12 years, when he plans to announce his upcoming death. The film also stars Marion Cotillard (La Vie en Rose), Léa Seydoux (Spectre, The Grand Budapest Hotel), Vincent Cassel (Black Swan), Nathalie Baye (Laurence Anyways) and Gaspard Ulliel (Saint Laurent, Hannibal Rising). It was shot in Montreal and France and is expected to hit screens in Quebec in September.
As we await the Cannes film festival’s announcement of the 2016 lineup, to come Thursday at approximately 5 a.m. Montreal time, Dolan is already well into prepping his next film, The Death and Life of John F. Donovan, which has the names Susan Sarandon, Jessica Chastain and Kit Harington (Game of Thrones) attached.
Dolan was named to the jury at the 2015 Cannes film fest, but did not have a film in or out of competition. He has, however, premiered four of his last five films at the prestigious film festival, including his first feature film, I Killed My Mother, in 2009 and Mommy, which earned the jury prize there in 2014. In between, Heartbeats and Laurence Anyways received enthusiastic receptions when selected for Cannes’ Un Certain Regard program.
