He’s how old?!

Xavier Dolan (March 20,1989) is a Canadian born filmmaker. Your first guess might be he’s won an award for an outstanding student short film. Maybe he’s written a script that just got picked up. Or maybe he’s about to star in a new hit film.

Now, bring your guesses to the realm of unbelievability and we’ll tell you why Xavier is a Future FilmBuff Hero…

He has written, starred in and directed TWO feature films. They were released a year a part and each won the Regards Jeunes at Cannes.

What?

Yes, we were stunned too. And while we are not here to answer the, “How the ___?” We are here to bring more attention to a talented young man with a future filled jam-packed with opportunity.

What Xavier lacks in experience he makes up for in talent and perseverance. Dolan broke onto the film scene at the age of 20 with a film entitled I Killed My Mother. Made almost entirely with his own money, the film won awards all around the world and put Dolan on the map.

Dolan is already hard at work on his third feature film entitled Laurence Anyways, the story of a guy who is both a husband and a professor and what happens to him after he decides to have a sex change.  The film deals with themes of love and loss, a motif constant through all three of Dolan’s films.

Today, Dolan considers himself a “virgin” in filmmaking, willing to try new things.  If you ask him what style of filmmaking he channels he’ll tell you, “I have no style, I have a weird craft. I don’t belong to any schools, or clique, or ghetto.”

Perhaps it is this unique perspective that has already driven Dolan to begin to develop his own fan base.  Though, even when surrounded by fame at a young age, Dolan still thoroughly reads critics as a way to discover how to better his work and grow as a filmmaker.  Perhaps it is this willingness to improve that will keep Dolan on our radar for years to come.