Skip to main content
Falcon Lake film image, director Charlotte Le Bon

Falcon Lake

This event has passed

Following her bow at 2022 Cannes Directors’ Fortnight, Charlotte Le Bon makes a VIFF debut with this thrilling and lush coming-of-age tale of first crushes, heartbreaks, and loss.

The film follows 13-year-old Bastien, who gets paired up with a reluctant Chloé (16) when their families come together for a summer holiday in a cabin by the lake. Wary of each other at first, the two slowly find their footing and establish an easy, exhilarating camaraderie. But with teenage hormones and ghost stories in the mix, lines get crossed and a darkness eventually envelops the summer bacchanals.

Sara Montpetit and Joseph Engel are mesmerizing as a pair of moody teenagers lowering each other’s defenses in an intimate summer dance. Their easy chemistry is contagious and bittersweet, capturing a spectrum of adolescent angst with astounding naturalistic precision.

Everything in this immensely promising, superbly crafted debut, is haunted, and every bright, happy beginning anticipates a darker, melancholy end.”—Jessica Kiang, Variety

 

Media Partner

Director
Cast

Joseph Engel, Sara Montpetit, Monia Chokri, Arthur Igual, Karine Gonthier-Hyndman, Anthony Therrien

Credits
Country of Origin

Canada/France

Year

2022

Language

In French and English with English subtitles

Film Contact
Links
19+
100 min
Drama Women Directors

Book Tickets

This event has passed.

Missing VIFF? Check out what's playing at the VIFF Centre

The Blue Trail

Dir. Gabriel Mascaro
86 min

77-year-old Tereza makes a break for the Brazilian jungle in this trippy septuagenarian fantasy, the latest from Brazilian director Gabriel Mascaro is a quirky picaresque, lushly photographed and filled with mordant humour.

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

Calle Málaga

Dir. Maryam Touzani
116 min

Seventy-nine-year-old María Ángeles lives independently in Tangier's Spanish quarter. When her daughter pressures her into selling her apartment, she refuses to give in, finding in her old age a new resilience and an unexpected romantic connection.

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema

Two Prosecutors

Dir. Sergei Loznitsa
119 min

In the midst of Stalin’s purges, a naïve prosecutor sets out to investigate a prisoner’s innocence, unaware of the labyrinthine bureaucracy awaiting him. A Kafkaesque procedural thriller about the pursuit of justice in the face of corruption.

Image: © SBS Productions

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

A Magnificent Life

Dir. Sylvain Chomet
91 min

Animator Sylvain Chomet (The Triplets of Belleville; The Illusionist) crafts a loving biopic of the revered French writer, playwright and filmmaker Marcel Pagnol (Jean de Florette; My Father's Glory)

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

The Skeleton of Mrs Morales

Dir. Rogelio A. González
85 min

In this delightful black comedy, an avuncular taxidermist (our old amigo Arturo de Córdova) is beloved by many but not his wife (Amparo Rivelles), a religious fanatic who can't bear to be touched. One day she pushes him too far...

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema
The Eyes of Ghana
The Eyes of Ghana film image; person examining a film strip

The Eyes of Ghana

Dir. Ben Proudfoot
90 min

In his debut feature doc Ben Proudfoot unearths the story — and the images — of Chris Hesse, personal cameraman to Ghana's revolutionary leader, Kwame Nkrumah, who was deposed in a coup in 1966. This is a fascinating history reclaimed from the archives.

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

Credits

Executive Producer

Tim Headington, Theresa Steele Page, Charlotte Le Bon, Émilie Georges, Naima Abed, Whitaker Lader

Producer

David Gauquié, Julien Deris, Sylvain Corbeil, Nancy Grant, Jalil Lespert, Dany Boon, Jean-Luc Ormières

Screenwriter

Charlotte Le Bon, François Choquet

Cinematography

Kristof Brandl

Editor

Julie Léna

Original Music

Shida Shahabi

Art Director

Alex Hercules Desjardins

Director

Charlotte Le Bon headshot, Falcon Lake director

Photo by Fred Gervais

Charlotte Le Bon

Charlotte Le Bon grew up in Quebec before moving to Paris. She worked as an actress with French directors such as Michel Gondry and Jalil Lespert. In the US, she shot films with Lasse Hallström, Robert Zemeckis, and Sean Ellis. Le Bon is an artist exploring her taste for strangeness through paintings, drawings, and lithographs. Her passion for genre films led her to write and direct Judith Hotel, a short film presented at Cannes in 2018. Falcon Lake is her first feature film.