Daring truth, gripping mystery, gore and lust - one can never expect where Xavier Hamel’s work will take them, and inevitably, the ride is always a wild one.  

Born and raised in Montréal, Quebec, Hamel’s journey began while he was working at a video store in a horror movie section - a perfect playground for a visionary queer mind. His fascination with horror oozes through his work: The Last Roadkill (2017), a film about three girls blindly obsessed with a serial killer, and his most recent short film Forever & Ever (2021), premiering at Fantasia Film Festival, could have easily been on those shelves.  Hamel’s love for women is apparent - most of his characters and collaborators are female. The main character in Rive Sud (2018) is based on Hamel’s mother, portrayed by Sylvie Léonard, who won the Best Actress award at the Reiff 2020. 

Hamel graduated from Concordia University with a BFA in Film Production, venturing off to Berlin, and later, to California. After receiving his MFA in Film Directing from the California Institute of the Arts (CalArts), Hamel’s most recent collaborations with LA based designer MLAED unraveled a deep-rooted urge to celebrate one of his muses - Shelley Duvall. She stars in Xavier's upcoming documentary Hello, I'm Shelley Duvall. 

Hamel states that his work started “from unknown places”, a search that eventually led his gaze inside himself. Hamel is currently working on his first feature film, and it is the most intimate and personal piece yet, titled Sugar.

Text Nana Makharashvili