Quebec’s Xavier Dolan has won the inaugural $5,000 ’emerging talent’ award from the Toronto Film Critics Association for his breakthrough film J’ai tué ma mère (I Killed My Mother).

TFCA president and Maclean’s film critic Brian D. Johnson says the 20-year-old writer/director/star was chosen for his ‘dazzling talent’ and that it’s just a ‘happy accident’ that his ‘audacious, deeply personal and flamboyant style of filmmaking’ is exactly the kind of independent cinema championed by Jay Scott, the late critic for whom the prize is named.

‘In a post-modern cynical age, Xavier Dolan is unafraid to express his passions and to dip into and echo the formalities of the [old] French new wave. He’s got a bit of the young Truffaut about him and he expresses that in his film, which is littered with cinematic references. And I like how gutsy he is to step up to the plate,’ Johnson tells Playback Daily.

Dolan and Ma mère burst onto the international scene at Cannes last year, where it won the Prix Regards Jeune. The film’s many other wins include best Canadian feature at VIFF and the grand prize in Zagreb. It is Canada’s submission to the foreign-language Oscars.

Dolan is currently in L.A., working on securing the nomination, and was unavailable for comment. Johnson says he will be at the TFCA gala dinner on Jan. 12 to accept the prize, to be presented by Atom Egoyan.

To date, I Killed My Mother has rung in $975,000 at the Quebec box office on only two screens. Its distributor K-Films Amérique plans to open the picture in Toronto on Feb. 5. Other cities will follow.

Previously announced awards to be presented at the TFCA gala dinner include the best Canadian feature for which David Cronenberg will present a $10,000 cheque to one of the three nominees — Benoît Pilon (The Necessities of Life), Denis Villeneuve (Polytechnique) or Bruce McDonald (Pontypool), all of whom are also scheduled to attend, according to Johnson.

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