Part gleaming farce, part-tough-minded exploration of the inherent insanity of love and desire, HEARTBEATS centers on two close friends: Francis (Xavier Dolan) and Marie (Monia Chokri). At a dinner party one evening they meet Nicolas (Niels Schneider), a striking young man from the country who has just recently arrived in town. His boyish charm and classical good looks create an irresistible mystique that neither of the two friends can shake. The threesome begins to spend more and ...

   I KILLED MY MOTHER (Xavier Dolan, Canada) For young people today, growing up is more complicated than ever before. Not only is more expected of them, but today's youth is barraged with media images and information that they must learn how to assimilate. Innocence does not  last very long, and for those making the uneasy transition from childhood to young adulthood, the road is a dramatic one. This has been portrayed in many different colors in several of the films I hav...

  One would imagine that a film entitled I KILLED MY MOTHER would be a wild ride of incestuous violence, but Montreal-based Xavier Dolan’s semi-autobiographical debut feature is more of a testament to the loving bonds between mother  and son, no matter how ferocious and unpleasant. The film, which marks the emergence of an enfant terrible auteur in the 20-year-old former child star Dolan, will be the closing night presentation of this year’s New Directors New Films on Sunday ev...