Quebec director sweeps awards for gay coming-of-age movie

Quebec filmmaker Xavier Dolan swept three of the four prizes Friday at the Cannes Directors’ Fortnight for his film I Killed My Mother (J’ai tue ma mere).

The 20-year-old’s first feature won the Art Cinema Award, given by an international jury of independent cinema programmers and the SACD Prize for best French-language film.

Dolan also won the Regards Jeunes 2009 Prize, given to a first film by a jury of young cinephiles.

The remaining prize, the Europa Cinemas Label, was given to the Austrian movie La Pivellina by Tizza Covi and Rainer Frimmel.

The Montrealer wrote and directed the coming-of-age movie, which is about a 16-year-old boy just discovering his gay sexuality and fighting with his mother, who constantly annoys him.

The film was one of the most talked about titles of the Directors’ Fortnight — a sidebar of the Cannes Film Festival — and its first screening was greeted with a standing ovation.

Dolan, who has compared his Cannes experience to a fairy tale, said the awards left him speechless.

“I’m completely flabbergasted, we never thought we would win a prize,” Dolan told the French language all-news network RDI.

“I can’t begin to tell you how moving this is,” he added.

See Quebec director sweeps awards for gay coming-of-age movie Canada.com