“It's Only the End of the World,” January 19

Thursday, January 19, 6:30 p.m.

Figge Art Museum, 225 West Second Street, Davenport IA

In the Figge Art Museum's current Film at the Figge series, the Davenport venue is screening international, award-winning works that deal with death, loss, and grief in unexpected ways, and the affecting and arresting lineup continues on January 19 with It's Only the End of the World, Xavier Dolan's award-winning French-Canadian drama lauded by The Guardian as a "brilliant, stylized, and hallucinatory evocation of family dysfunction."

Winner of the Grand Prix Award at the 2016 Cannes Film Festival, It's Only the End of the World is based on the French play Juste la fin du monde by Jean-Luc Lagarce, and tells of a young playwright who reunites with his family after a 12-year absence to inform them he is going to die. During the final stage of his terminal illness, 34-year-old Louis decides to return to the home he left without looking back. Determined to fill a void and under the illusion that he still is the master of his life, Louis attempts to reconcile with his family only to discover that even though their faces are familiar, they are all strangers to one other. Eventually, when the right words prove achingly elusive, the silent presence of death profoundly underlines missed opportunities and everyone's unwillingness to honestly listen and communicate. As personal tensions continue to build, Xavier Dolan's moving domestic saga asks the question: Will Louis break free from the restraints of the past and finally find the courage to unearth his painful secret?

With its cast of French stars including Gaspard Ulliel, Nathalie Baye, Léa Seydoux, Vincent Cassel, and Academy Award winner Marion Cotillard, and was a co-production between Canada and France shot in Montreal and Laval, Quebec, beginning in 2015. The film made its world premiere at the 2016 Cannes Film Festival, where it competed for the Palme d'Or and won the Cannes Grand Prix – making Dolan the second Canadian director to receive this award – as fell as the festival's Ecumenical Jury Prize. It also won six Canadian Screen Awards, including Best Motion Picture, Director, Screenplay, and, for Cassel, Best Supporting Actor, with the film's cinematography and makeup also acknowledged. Among other trophies and citations bestowed on It's Only the End of the World were three of France's César Awards (for Best Director, film editing, and lead actor Ulliel); five Prix Iris awards including Best Picture; and the Art Cinema Award at the 2016 Filmfest Hamburg.

It's Only the End of the World will be presented in the John Deere Auditorium on January 19, admission to the 6:30 p.m. screening of the release intended for mature audiences is free, and more information on the Film at the Figge series is available by calling (563)326-7804 and visiting FiggeArtMuseum.org.