# Falcon Lake (film)

Falcon Lake is a 2022 coming-of-age drama film, directed and co-written by Charlotte Le Bon. Adapted from the graphic novel Une sœur [fr] by Bastien Vivès, the film stars Joseph Engel as Bastien, a 13-year-old boy from Paris, France, on a family vacation in Quebec, where he meets and develops a relationship with Chloé (Sara Montpetit), the 16-year-old daughter of his mother's friend Louise (Karine Gonthier-Hyndman).
The cast also includes Monia Chokri as Bastien's mother Violette, as well as Jeff Roop, Pierre-Luc Lafontaine, and Thomas Laperrière in supporting roles.
The film was shot in mid-2021 in and around Gore, Quebec during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The film debuted in the Director's Fortnight program at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival on May 18, 2022. It had its Canadian premiere at the 2022 Toronto International Film Festival.

## Plot

Shy 13-year-old Bastien and his family are staying at a friend's lake cottage in Quebec, where Bastien meets the bold 16-year-old Chloé. She is a fan of folklore and local legends and tells Bastien a ghost is haunting the nearby lake. The two teens quickly bond.

## Cast

* Joseph Engel as Bastien
* Sara Montpetit as Chloé
* Monia Chokri as Violette
* Arthur Igual [fr] as Romain
* Karine Gonthier-Hyndman as Louise
* Anthony Therrien as Oliver
* Pierre-Luc Lafontaine [fr] as Stan

## Critical response

On the review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes, Falcon Lake holds an approval rating of 94% based on 48 reviews from critics, with an average rating of 7.5/10. The website's critics consensus reads, "Moody, sensitive, and subtly layered, Falcon Lake captures the intoxicating horror of young love." However, online magazine Slant commented that "the inadvertent effect of the brooding, almost overbearing gloom that shrouds Falcon Lake is that it manages to sap the life out of its initially carefree depiction of young people’s emotional lives".
Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 71 out of 100, based on eight critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".

## Awards

| Award | Date of ceremony | Category | Recipient(s) | Result |
| Deauville American Film Festival | 2022 | Prix d'Ornano-Valenti | Falcon Lake | Won |
| Vancouver International Film Festival | 2022 | Emerging Canadian Director | Charlotte Le Bon | Won |
| Prix Louis-Delluc | 2022 | Best First Film | Falcon Lake | Won |
| Prix collégial du cinéma québécois | 2023 | Best Film | Falcon Lake | Nominated |
| César Awards | February 24, 2023 | Best First Feature Film | Charlotte Le Bon | Nominated |
| Canadian Screen Awards | April 16, 2023 | Best Motion Picture | Sylvain Corbeil, Nancy Grant | Nominated |
| Canadian Screen Awards | April 16, 2023 | Best Director | Charlotte Le Bon | Nominated |
| Canadian Screen Awards | April 16, 2023 | Best Lead Performance in a Film | Joseph Engel | Nominated |
| Canadian Screen Awards | April 16, 2023 | Best Supporting Performance in a Film | Sara Montpetit | Nominated |
| Canadian Screen Awards | April 16, 2023 | Best Adapted Screenplay | Charlotte Le Bon | Nominated |
| Canadian Screen Awards | April 16, 2023 | John Dunning Best First Feature Award | Charlotte Le Bon | Won |
| Prix Iris | December 10, 2023 | Best Film | Nancy Grant, Sylvain Corbeil, Dany Boon, Jalil Lespert, Julien Deris, David Gauquié, Jean-Luc Ormières | Nominated |
| Prix Iris | December 10, 2023 | Best Actress | Sara Montpetit | Nominated |
| Prix Iris | December 10, 2023 | Best Cinematography | Kristof Brandl | Nominated |
| Prix Iris | December 10, 2023 | Best Sound | Stephen De Oliveira, Séverin Favriau, Stéphane Thiébaut | Nominated |
| Prix Iris | December 10, 2023 | Most Successful Film Outside Quebec | Nancy Grant, Sylvain Corbeil, Dany Boon, Jalil Lespert, Julien Deris, David Gauquié, Jean-Luc Ormières, Charlotte Le Bon, Ariane Giroux-Dallaire | Won |
| Prix Iris | December 10, 2023 | Best First Film | Charlotte Le Bon | Won |