Dolan Doubles Down: It’s Only the End of the World for Cotillard, Seydoux, Cassel, Ulliel & Nathalie Baye

Joining the ranks of filmmakers with insatiable appetites such as Michael Winterbottom, Francois Ozon and Woody Allen, Xavier Dolan doesn’t take too much down time between projects. Taking a note from fellow Quebecois filmmakers (Denis Villeneuve and Jean Marc Vallee) exploring the international stage, The Death and Life of John F. Donovan will not be Dolan’s next project (still pegged for a fall shoot), but instead, the recently named film jury member will extend his stay in France post Cannes Film Festival for what will be his first international film production. Seville International announced that all-stars Marion Cotillard, Léa Seydoux, Vincent Cassel, Gaspard Ulliel and Laurence Anyways‘ Nathalie Baye will star in Dolan’s sixth feature film, Juste la fin du Monde (It’s Only the End of the World) with production beginning next month. The Canada-France coproduction sees Mommy producer Nancy Grant produce via Sons of Manual with Xavier Dolan and MK2’s Nathanaël Karmitz (who producer Laurence Anyways, Tom at the Farm) will serve as producers along with Sylvain Corbeil. Looks like it’ll be a double down in 2015 and 2016.

Gist: Our guess is that Vincent Cassel takes the writer role…this is based on a play by Jean-Luc Lagarce of the same name, after 12 years of absence, a writer goes back to his hometown, planning on announcing his upcoming death to his family. As resentment soon rewrites the course of the afternoon, fits and feuds unfold, fuelled by loneliness and doubt, while all attempts of empathy are sabotaged by people’s incapacity to listen, and love.

Worth Noting: Mentioned by Dolan in the press release, the project was on the backburner for a little while now, and it was his muse who made him discover the piece. “Anne Dorval had brought the beautiful play from Jean-Luc Lagarce to my attention many years ago“.

Do We Care?: I’m of the opinion that Dolan’s best work to date is Tom at the Farm which also happens to be his first adaptation of a play. We’re thinking of tightly wound up characters a la The Celebration and Venus in Fur type exchanges should make for a cerebral, talkly type of blood bath.