From Harry Potter to heartbreak: Xavier Dolan talks ink and inspiration

This week, Xavier Dolan is bringing the end of the world home to Canada.

Four months after it won him the Grand Prix at the Cannes Film Festival, the Montreal filmmaker's sixth feature,It's Only The End of the World, is hitting Montreal and Toronto theatres. Adapted from theJean-Luc Lagarceplay, the film features French actor GaspardUlliel as a terminally ill writer returning home to his family after a long estrangement to tell them he is dying. Its homegrown release gives Canadiansan opportunity to once againbe inspired by one of theircountry's most internationally acclaimed filmmakers. But what inspires Dolan himself?

The 27-year-old has as many tattoos as he has had birthdays, including one for each of the films he's completed (the rest, he's sad to admit, have resultedfrom broken hearts). Of them, a mighty few including the one he got for his latest film pay homage to something that means "everything" to Dolan: Harry Potter.

Dolan explains his Hogwarts-ian inspiration in this clip produced by CBC Arts.

It's Only The End of the World. Directed by Xavier Dolan.Opens Wed, Sept 21 in Montreal and Fri, Sept 23 in Toronto.

WatchExhibitionistsSunday at 4:30pm (5pm NT) on CBC TV.