Falcon Lake

Wednesday 23 July at 7.30pm

Charlotte Le Bon | Canada/France | 2022 | 100 mins | R16 Sex scenes & sexual references

This remarkably assured feature debut melds a dreamy summertime coming-of-age teen romance with an eerie and enigmatic ghost story.

“French-Canadian actor Charlotte Le Bon makes a bold directorial debut with this haunting coming-of-age romance set during a summer vacation… Based on Bastien Vivès’s 2017 graphic novel Une Soeur, this eerie, dreamy story of growing pains recounts the experiences of nearly-14-year-old Bastien (Joseph Engel), an awkward, earnest teenager who falls for the slightly older and more worldly Chloé (Sara Monpetit who would later star in Humanist Vampire…) while their families are vacationing in a lakeside cabin in rural Quebec. But it’s not just young love that’s in the air: something ghostly seems to be haunting the body of water and the surrounding forest. Amid their trepidation about the spectral unknown, Bastien must face the uncertainties of advancing adolescence. This directorial debut from Le Bon is a striking, tonally slippery work that consistently subverts and upends the expectations of the coming-of-age genre, gesturing toward the supernatural while toeing the line between sweet and scary with deft control. Mixing menace and mirth, melancholy and magic, along with the enchanting chemistry between young leads Joseph Engel and Sara Montpetit, Falcon Lake is a magnificent first feature that lingers in the mind.”—Melbourne International Film Festival 2022