Every adolescent has moments of wishing that their parents would just disappear, but few dare announce their death just to get out of a school assignment.

Such a lie comes easily to Hubert, the mortified teenager whose story is told in this daring first feature from Canada. A semi-autobiographical film about a young gay man coming of age while struggling with his tortured relationship with his mother, the film is the work of twenty-year-old Montrealer Xavier Dolan, who wrote, directed, and stars in the picture.

It's an inventive, darkly funny, and furious film, so it's no surprise that this confident debut was the talk of the Director's Fortnight at Cannes in 2009.

(2009, Canada, 100 minutes.)
In French with subtitles.
(DVD projection).

This program is co-sponsored by the Atlanta Francophonie Committee and the Consulate General of France in Atlanta. Additional screenings take place at the Midtown Art Cinema March 20—24.