Gus Van Sant is coming on board as an executive producer to bring Laurence Anyways, the third film from French-Canadian director Xavier Dolan (I Killed My Mother, Heartbeats), to American audiences.
Debuting at the Cannes Film Festival, where it won the Queer Palm and a Best Actress win for Suzanne Clément, Laurence Anyways is the story of a couple facing a difficult journey when the man decides to start living as a woman. Facing rejection from family and co-workers, Laurence (Melvil Poupaud) and his fiancée, Frédérique (Clément), must determine if love is enough to see them through.
Van Sant joins producers Lyse Lafontaine, Nathanaël Karmitz and Charles Gillibert for the American presentation through Breaking Glass Pictures in 2013. For Dolan, the arrangement is a chance to work with one of his idols: “One of the first encounters I had with a more sophisticated cinema was My Own Private Idaho,” he says. “It was the first time I had a sense of what cinema could be or should be made of: Freedom, honesty and intimacy. For me to be endorsed by Gus Van Sant is like telling an 8-year old that Batman is his uncle.”
