- It's not just about their sexuality, because in that case, they could only have a one-time lie, have sex, and let go of the doubt or whatever is consuming them. But the doubt that meets them is about why they have feelings for someone they have known since they were five years old, says Xavier Dolan.

After his previous film, which was the first in English with Hollywood actors, was sawn in unison, the author Dolan now returns to familiar French-speaking territory in Canada. When childhood friends Matthias and Maxime reluctantly kiss each other for a film school project, long-repressed emotions are ignited, which ultimately threatens to disrupt the balance of the quarrelsome but lovable gang.

- They talk about everything and nothing except what is really important. They joke and have fun. Everyone is well-meaning, good guys. They do not want each other any harm, and they are protective of each other. But it is easier to play with and shota than to say: “What happened when we were kissed? I felt something, did you? ”But they talk quietly about it. The film addresses the notions of masculinity that we have been fed with throughout our lives and what it means to be masculine, feminine, gay or to be gay, says Xavier Dolan.

Want to renew his filmmaking

Some things are recurring in Dolan's filmmaking: poor mother-son relationships, slow-motion scenes, and complicated love relationships outside the heteronorm. Dolan often plays the lead role herself and Anne Dorval often takes on the role of his mother. In a typical scene, they stand arguing in a kitchen. All the elements are also included in the latest Matthias & Maxime movie. But after reading an interview with Martin Scorsese, Dolan himself seems to have begun to doubt his own favorite concept.

- What really grabbed hold of me was that he said "film is an art form that gives you the unexpected". It hurt me and I thought to myself ... Is that what I do? I create what I expected. Does the audience expect to find me there when I talk about mothers and sons? I've been personal all my life but never wondered if others got tired of me or my movies. But should I move towards the unexpected, is that where I want to go?

Are you going to do it in the next movie, going in a completely different direction?

- Completely!