The Franco-Canadian director Xavier Dolan has issued a statement saying that he is reluctant to submit his new film to the Cannes film festival – where five out of his six movies to date have premiered.

In an Instagram post, the director gives two reasons for the decision: that the film is unlikely to be completed in time, plus a disdain for the kind of “trolling, bullying and unwarranted hatred” Dolan perceives as part of the current critical climate.

A photo posted by xavierdolan (@xavierdolan) on Sep 18, 2016 at 4:16am PDT

Dolan previously said that the mixed response at this year’s festival to It’s Only the End of the World had given him pause over whether to submit The Death and Life of John F Donovan – about a US TV star and featuring Kit Harington, Jessica Chastain, Natalie Portman, Susan Sarandon, Kathy Bates, and Michael Gambon.

Speaking to the Montreal Gazette, Dolan said: “I don’t think I’d present a film like this at Cannes. It’s a film about an American TV star who is framed by the American media system. There are bits in it that are so much like what I lived in Cannes, and I’m afraid that people would think it’s my revenge project. Except that I wrote it five years ago.”

Dolan’s history with the festival has generally been a positive one. Mommy won him a joint jury prize with Jean-Luc Godard in 2014; a year later Dolan himself served on the jury.