Xavier Dolan is x-ing out his retirement plans.
After announcing he was stepping away from filmmaking in 2023, the 2024 Cannes Un Certain Regard jury president confirmed he has a new film in the works. Dolan made the announcement during a masterclass at the Lumiere Film Festival while launching his book, “A Friendship Through Film.” The event marked the 10th anniversary of his feature “Mommy.”
Dolan stated that the script for his upcoming feature is completed and that he hopes production will begin in 2025.
“It’s going to be an amalgam of several genres,” Dolan said, via Variety, with the feature “taking place in 1895 in the world of the elite, the Parisian literary world, and in the countryside too.”
He added that there are “certainly horrific aspects or moments” and a “lot of comic elements” in the untitled project.
As for his announced retirement, Dolan spoke about finding his inspiration once again.
“If I’ve waited this long to make another film it’s because I no longer had the desire or the energy, and I knew that there’s no point if you’re doing it without this passion, this strength,” Dolan said. “I get up in the morning, I read, I want to understand the world we live in, and sometimes cinema becomes secondary in this world. Cinema is a way of escaping this world, but it’s hard to ignore what’s happening in Gaza, in Lebanon, impossible for me to deny our fragile environment, to deny that everything I see takes my focus off my small artistic gesture.”
Dolan also reflected on his career, which began at age 19 with “I Killed My Mother” based on his original short story. The film was chosen to represent Canada at the Academy Awards.
“There are certain choices that are difficult to talk about because it would be indecent to reveal,” Dolan said when asked about what he would change about his work. “I might have wished that certain collaborations had led to more generosity, or inventiveness, but things are what they are, and you have to come to terms with certain decisions that have had an impact on the depth, or lack of depth, of certain films.”
He added that 2019’s “Matthias & Maxime” was a “healing film” which reunited him with his “best friends” after the “failure” of English-language debut, “The Death and Life of John F. Donovan.”
While Dolan directed eight features in 10 years, “Matthias & Maxime” was his most recent film. The writer/director later debuted the TV series “Night Logan Woke Up” at 2023 Sundance.
Dolan previously told Spanish outlet El Pais that he was done working on projects that “barely anyone sees,” also in 2023.
“I don’t feel like committing two years to a project that barely anyone sees. I put too much passion into it to have these disappointments,” Dolan said. “It makes me wonder if my filmmaking is bad, and I know it’s not.”
He continued, “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 further hinted at his retirement for years, telling Le Journal de Montreal in 2022 that he is not as inclined to tell stories anymore. However, it seems that now he has found his calling once more.
“I don’t really want to do this job anymore. I’m tired. We are in 2022, and the world has changed drastically,” Dolan said. “Me, in that world, I no longer necessarily feel the need to tell stories and to relate to myself. I want to take time to be with my friends and family. I want to shoot commercials and build myself a house in the country one day when I have enough money saved. I don’t say that in a sad way at all. I just want to live something else, other experiences.”
