Brainy Quote “Suggestions that are not Motivating” ~ Xavier Dolan All my life, I heard, 'Stop daydreaming,' 'Get over yourself,' 'You'll never get there,' 'Aim lower,' 'You'll hurt yourself,' from teachers, family, and friends. Xavier Dolan Sepanjang hidupku, aku mendengar, 'Berhentilah bermimpi,' 'Lupakan dirimu sendiri,'’ Engkau tidak akan pernah sampai di sana,' 'Rendahkahlah tujuanmu,' ‘Kamu akan menyakiti diri sendiri,' dari guru, keluarga, dan teman-teman dekatku. Seringkah Anda mendengar kalimat yang skeptis atau tidak memberi motivasi positif dari orang- orang terdekat Anda? Saya pun seringkali mendengarnya, baik sejak kecil bahkan hingga saat ini, masih saja ada kalimat-kalimat yang keluar dari mulut mereka. ‘Jangan terlalu jauh bermimpi’, ‘Kenali dirimu’, ‘Sadarlah siapa dan dari mana engkau berasal’. Masih banyak lagi hal-hal yang dikatakan oleh mereka, yang dapat membuat kita ‘keluar’ dari impian kita. Sedihnya, orang-orang yang mengatakan itu justru bukan dari orang yang membenci kita. Mereka sebagian besar adalah orang-orang dekat kita, baik dari guru kita, anggota keluarga, bahkan dari teman-teman kita. Itu juga yang diterima oleh seorang Xavier Dolan, seorang aktor berkebangsaan Kanada (1989 - …) yang menjadi direktur, penulis, editor, dan costume designer. Ia meng-quote, ‘All my life, I heard, Brainy Quote “Suggestions that are not Motivating” ~ Xavier Dolan Page 1 'Stop daydreaming,' 'Get over yourself,' 'You'll never get there,' 'Aim lower,' 'You'll hurt yourself,' from teachers, family, and friends.’ Secara bebas diterjemahkan, ‘Sepanjang hidupku, aku mendengar, 'Berhentilah bermimpi,' 'Lupakan dirimu sendiri,'’ Engkau tidak akan pernah sampai di sana,' 'Rendahkahlah tujuanmu,' ‘Kamu akan menyakiti diri sendiri,' dari guru, keluarga, dan teman- teman dekatku.’ Kapanpun, dimanapun, sepertinya setiap orang pernah mengalami penentangan bahkan hambatan untuk berhenti bermimpi terlalu tinggi. Namun, tergantung bagaimana kita menyikapinya. Bila kita membiarkan diri kita untuk ‘patuh’ dengan apa yang mereka katakan, maka kita akan menjadi orang yang biasa saja. Padahal sesungguhnya kita memiliki potensi yang tidak terhingga. Tetapi bila kita fokus pada mimpi kita dan berusaha meraih impian kita, niscaya kita akan menjadi orang yang luar biasa, terlepas apa yang mereka katakan. Lakukan hal ini, dengarkan mereka sebagai pemicu untuk melakukan yang terbaik. Tetapi abaikan apa yang mereka katakan, karena yang paling tahu siapa kita dan potensi kita adalah kita sendiri, bukan mereka. So, tetaplah teguh dengan pendirian kita. Jangan hiraukan apa kata orang. Mereka mengatakan hal itu karena mereka sesungguhnya ragu dengan diri mereka sendiri, bukan ragu pada kita. Mulai sekarang, mulailah melangkah. Wujudkan mimpimu, awali dengan langkah pertama. Seberapa jauh pun perjalanannya, bila dimulai dari sekarang, maka engkau dan saya akan sampai pada tujuan. Tangerang Selatan, 23 April 2017 Riset Corporation --- Xavier Dolan Xavier Dolan (né Xavier Dolan-Tadros), actor, director, writer, producer, editor, costume designer (born 20 March 1989 in Montréal, QC). A precocious practitioner of auteurist art cinema, Xavier Dolan made a meteoric rise from child actor to filmmaking wunderkind, garnering international acclaim at age 20 for his debut feature, J’ai tué ma mère (I Killed My Mother, 2009). His next four films — Les amours imaginaires (Heartbeats, 2010), Laurence Anyways (2012), Tom à la ferme (Tom at the Farm, 2013) and Mommy (2014) — were all completed by the time he was 25. They won numerous awards and further established him as one of international cinema’s most promising and prolific young filmmakers. His sixth feature film, Juste la fin du monde (It’s Only the End of the World, 2016), won the Grand Prix at the Cannes Film Festival, César Awards for best director and editing, and six Canadian Screen Awards including Best Motion Picture, Adapted Screenplay and Achievement in Direction. Brainy Quote “Suggestions that are not Motivating” ~ Xavier Dolan Page 2 Xavier Dolan, 2009. Image: Étienne Ljóni Poisson/flickr cc. Étienne Ljóni Poisson/flickr cc. Early Years and Career The son of schoolteacher Geneviève Dolan and actor and singer Manuel Tadros, Dolan began his acting career at age four. He appeared in a number of television commercials, as well as the television series Omerta (1996) and L’or (2001), and such films as Claude Fournier’s J'en suis! (1997), Roger Cantin’s La forteresse suspendue (2001) and Pascal Laugier’s controversial horror movie Martyrs (2008). He left school to pursue a career as an actor, and also found steady work dubbing French dialogue into films and TV series distributed in Québec; he provided the voice of Stan in South Park, Ron Weasley in the Harry Potter movies and Jacob Black in Twilight Saga: New Moon (2009). J’ai tué ma mère (I Killed My Mother, 2009) At age 17, Dolan wrote the script for his first feature film, J’ai tué ma mère (I Killed My Mother, 2009), which he planned to produce, direct and star in. He convinced Québec TV star Anne Dorval to co-star and invested $150,000 of his own savings into the production, but ran out of money halfway through filming. After his distributor and producer backed out of the project, veteran production manager Carole Mondello came on board as executive producer and helped Dolan complete the film by securing funds from the Québec cultural development corporation, SODEC. The semi-autobiographical film, which centres on a young homosexual teenager (Dolan) and his love- hate relationship with his mother (Dorval), who decides to send him to boarding school, received an eight-minute ovation following its premiere in the Directors’ Fortnight section at the Cannes Film Festival. Peter Brunette of the Hollywood Reporter summed up the opinion of many critics — and even Dolan himself, who admitted the film was “flawed” — by calling it “a somewhat uneven film that demonstrates a great deal of talent.” Brunette also called the film “funny and audacious,” while Allan Hunter of Screen International said that it possessed “the sting of shrewdly observed truth.” J’ai tué ma mère won three prestigious awards at Cannes — the Art Cinema Award, the SACD Prize for screenplay and the Prix Regards Jeunes — and built on its success by winning more honours on the international festival circuit, including a Lumière Award as the best French film made outside France. It went on to receive four awards at the Prix Jutra (now the Prix Iris) including Best Screenplay, Most Successful Film Outside Québec and Best Film, upsetting Denis Villeneuve’s Polytechnique (2009). But it was shut out of all competitive categories at the Genie Awards, leading the film’s distributor, Louis Dussault of K-Films Amérique, to label the Genies Brainy Quote “Suggestions that are not Motivating” ~ Xavier Dolan Page 3 “totally irrelevant” and resulting in renewed calls for separate awards for English and French- language films in Canada. The film did receive the Claude Jutra Award (now the Canadian Screen Award for Best First Feature) at the Genies, and Dolan was awarded the inaugural $5,000 Jay Scott Prize for emerging talent from the Toronto Film Critics Association. J’ai tué ma mère was named one of Canada’s Top Ten features of the year by the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) and chosen as Canada’s official entry for Best Foreign Language Film at the Academy Awards. However, due to legal problems experienced by the film’s US distributor, Regent Entertainment, it was not released theatrically in the United States until 2013. Les amours imaginaires (Heartbeats, 2010) Production of Dolan’s second film, Les amours imaginaires(Heartbeats) began in the fall of 2009 and was financed privately. Dolan wrote, directed, produced, edited and acted in the film, as well as helping with costumes and set design. The storyline follows two childhood friends, a young man and woman (Dolan and Maria Chokri), who fall in love with the same boy (Niels Schneider). Imbued with a seductive musicality, the film won the Prix de la Jeunesse at Cannes and the top prize at the Sydney Film Festival. Back in Canada, it was nominated for four Genie Awards, including Best Motion Picture and Best Direction, and the AQCC (Québec association of film critics) award for best Québec film. It was also named one of Canada’s Top Ten features of the year by TIFF. Xavier Dolan on the set of Laurence Anyways (2012) Dolan began acting at age four. For years he dubbed French dialogue into films and TV series distributed in Québec, providing the voice of Stan in South Park, Ron Weasley in the Harry Potter movies and Jacob Black in Twilight Saga: New Moon. (courtesy Cinémathèque québécoise. Photo: © Richmond Lam) Laurence Anyways (2012) Released in Québec in May 2012, the much-anticipated Laurence Anyways follows the decade-long journey of a transgender poet and literature professor (Melvil Poupaud) and the impact his transition has on his girlfriend (Suzanne Clément). Executive produced by American filmmaker Gus Vant Sant and made with a budget of just under $10 million, the stylistically bold film — alternately epic and inspired, messy and meandering — was selected to compete in the Un Certain Regard section of the Cannes Film Festival, where it won the Queer Palm award and Clément was named Best Actress. It later received the Best Canadian Feature Film Award at TIFF — which also named it one of Canada’s Top Ten features of 2012 — as well as 11 Genie Award nominations and 11 nominations at the Prix Iris. Brainy Quote “Suggestions that are not Motivating” ~ Xavier Dolan Page 4 In March 2013, a retrospective of Dolan’s first three films were shown in New York as part of the Museum of Modern Art’s Canadian Front Series, an annual survey of Canadian films. Tom à la ferme (Tom at the Farm, 2013) Dolan’s fourth feature, an adaptation of Michel Marc Bouchard’s award-winning playTom à la ferme, marked a rare move into genre cinema.