Canadian actor-director Xavier Dolan, left, poses with Monia Chokri and Niels Schneider, stars of his new film Heartbeats, presented at this year's Cannes Film Festival. (Anne-Christine Poujoulat/AFP/Getty Images)

"I am just in awe," says Allan Stratton as he addresses the audience from the stage of the Salle Debussy, one of several enormous theatres at the Cannes Film Festival. On Tuesday, the Toronto writer could not contain his excitement that Life, Above All, a moving new film based on his 2004 novel, Chanda's Secrets — about an African teen coping with AIDS — was about to make its world premiere.

'When you look at the history of Canadian films here at this festival, it's really remarkable to see how there's this been recognition of what we've done.'

— Atom Egoyan, director

One hundred and 16 minutes later, Stratton and the film’s multinational group of creators – including Stratton’s friend Dennis Foon, the Vancouver playwright and screenwriter who adapted Chanda's Secrets for the screen – would have more reasons to be pleased. Not only did Life, Above All receive a hearty standing ovation, but the movie made a very important fan.

"I'm still astonished at what happened," says Foon. "As I was walking up the aisle to leave, a woman stopped me and said, 'My husband would like to say something to you.' It was Roger Ebert."

Ebert conveyed his enthusiasm to everyone involved in the film. He also heralded it in his online column for the Chicago Sun-Times, calling it the fest's "best heart-warmer and tear-jerker thus far." Stratton and Foon were stunned.

Xavier Dolan can certainly relate. The Montrealer's debut, I Killed My Mother, earned three awards at last year’s festival, and the Cannes screenings for his follow-up, Heartbeats, have had some of the lustiest responses of any new title this year. It's a lush, stylized tale about a guy and his girl pal competing for the same curly-haired Adonis. The 21-year-old Dolan is very much the boy of the hour, even though Heartbeats is a less substantial and original piece of work than his first outing. (Dolan’s borrowings from idols like Wong Kar-wai are far more blatant this time around.) Heartbeats is already proving to be a more potent crowd-pleaser – no wonder IFC Films just picked it up for U.S. distribution. (It’s out in Quebec in June under its French title, Les Amours imaginaires.)

On Thursday, another young Canadian filmmaker will learn about Cannes audiences firsthand. Noah Pink will make his debut in the Directors' Fortnight with ZedCrew. A super-low-budget 45-minute short that the 27-year-old Haligonian shot in Zambia, it concerns an aspiring hip-hop artist, his would-be entourage and their ambitions to make it in America. While ZedCrew is scrappy and roughhewn, its vitality suggests Pink has considerable promise. And given what’s happening to Dolan’s career, it’d be unwise to underestimate the effect of a screening at Cannes.

Atom Egoyan has premiered nearly every one of his movies at Cannes since Speaking Parts (1989), so he is well-versed in the ways of the place. On Tuesday, the filmmaker took a break from his duties as president of the Cinefondation and Short Film Jury to join Dolan and Pink for a group interview at the Canadian Pavilion.

Egoyan admitted to being greatly inspired by the Canadians who'd been embraced by the festival in the 1960s and 1970s — directors like Jean-Pierre Lefebvre and Denys Arcand. "I remember reading about the response those films had," Egoyan says. "It was so exciting that these films were getting these premieres. I remember sitting in my tiny apartment at Spadina and College in Toronto and thinking, 'That’s so what I'd love to do one day.'"

Directors Noah Pink, left, Xavier Dolan, centre, and Atom Egoyan speak at the Canada Pavilion during the Cannes festival. (Andreas Rentz/Getty Images)

Seeing a video clip of the reception for Dolan this week reminded him of the "physical feeling" that a Cannes ovation can create. "To be surrounded by all those people cheering and flashing their lights, it’s overwhelming," Egoyan says. "It’s that moment when you actually feel that what you have has currency and meaning."

The success of I Killed My Mother at Cannes had a transformative effect on Dolan. "I realized that what not going to Cannes would mean for such a little film with such a low budget — it might exist, but not necessarily live. That's what the Directors' Fortnight did: it made the film go beyond a mere existence on a video-store shelf."

Though his Fortnight bow with ZedCrew had yet to happen, Pink said that he’d had a few opportunities to watch the short that precedes every screening in the program, showcasing films and filmmakers that the Fortnight helped make famous. "They have this nice little montage with Xavier’s photo and Atom’s name," says Pink. "And Martin Scorsese and Robert Bresson and on and on, all these directors whose movies I watched and fell in love with while growing up in Halifax. To be here is beyond a great honour. It’s almost surreal. So I'm trying to have fun and soak it all in."

As well he should, given that what happens in the Cannes bubble may not be repeatable anywhere else. Those responses can give a filmmaker an appetite for more of the same, but Dolan insists that he’s not making movies to get cheers. "I don't think it's one of cinema’s duties to please people – it's to tell stories and move people."

Pink’s ambitions for ZedCrew are much clearer: "If we don’t hit $100 million, I'll be very disappointed," he jokes.

Looking at the larger picture, Egoyan suggests that the most important thing Cannes creates for Canadian filmmakers could be the sense they’re part of a bigger tradition.

"For all the perils around Canadian cinema," he says, "when you look at it in its entirety, we’ve made an incredible body of films. And when you look at the history of films here at this festival, it's really remarkable to see how there's this been recognition of what we've done, against all odds and against huge hardships."

As filmmakers at all levels can tell you, finding funding to make these personal visions is often the greatest challenge of all. It’s worth noting that none of the three films with Canadian creators that are making a big impression at Cannes this year received substantial funding from the usual public agencies. Dolan's film (which cost around $600,000) and Pink's (which cost a mere $1,504) were mostly financed privately. Life, Above All had been initially developed as a Canadian co-production with Germany and South Africa; unfortunately, the producer who'd originally enlisted Foon to write the screenplay failed to secure the distributor it needed to qualify for financial support from Telefilm Canada.

Stratton knows it might seem strange that a film based on a Canadian novel and adapted by a Canadian screenwriter ended up being a German-South African co-production. But he believes that director Oliver Schmitz was right when he told the writers that Life, Above All "feels like it's got a Canadian heart."

Adds Foon, "We're proud of it as a Canadian film and those bodies here did help with the script development. The fact that we didn’t get financing and Canada’s name isn’t on it as one of the producing countries is disappointing for everyone concerned." As the screenwriter said in a story in the Globe and Mail last weekend, "This could have been a big Canadian film at Cannes."

Even so, the sight of the two writers enjoying their Cannes moment was a very welcome one. And when audiences back home get to see these movies, they’ll understand why Canuck talent looks right at home on these famed red carpets.

Jason Anderson is a writer based in Toronto.