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Loosely based on a graphic novel by Bastien Vives, Falcon Lake is another in a long line of coming-of-age tales about the discovery of first love. But Charlotte Le Bon, an actor making her feature directing debut, cloaks her take on youthful summer romance in an aura of ominous foreboding. The titular Quebecois lake is the setting for the budding relationship between Bastien (Joseph Engel) and Chloé (Sara Montpetit), which is complicated by the latter’s insistence that the place is haunted by the ghost of a boy who drowned there.

It’s this macabre tale that informs the tenor of Falcon Lake, as Le Bon blurs genre to craft a bildungsroman whose deeply pensive tone and eerie sound design and visual compositions lend it the rhythms of a ghost story. But Le Bon’s genre-bending maneuvers also prove to be frustrating at times, as the film feels just as...

Whether it’s Michel Gondry’s Mood Indigo, Robert Zemeckis’ The Walk, The Hundred-Foot Journey, Anthropoid, The Promise, or last year’s Fresh, chances are you’ve seen Charlotte Le Bon’s work as an actor. She’s now helmed her feature with Falcon Lake, which premiered at Cannes Film Festival and will now arrive in theaters next month from Yellow Veil Pictures.

Following a shy teenager on a summer vacation who experiences the joy and pain of young adulthood when he forges an unlikely bond with an older girl, the cast features Joseph Engel, Sara Montpetit, Monia Chokri, Arthur Igual, Karine Gonthier-Hyndman, Thomas Laperrière, Anthony Therrien, Pierre-Luc Lafontaine, Lévi Doré, and Jeff Roop.

The director also touched on the ghostly element of the film, saying, “I am a fan of horror films. They are my first visceral memories of cinema. When I was younger in Quebec, my friends and...

"Some ghosts don't realize they're dead." First love will haunt you. Yellow Veil Pics has revealed an official trailer for a mysterious little indie film titled Falcon Lake, directed by the Quebecois actress Charlotte Le Bon making her feature directorial debut. A shy teenager on a summer vacation experiences the joy and pain of young adulthood when he forges an unlikely bond with an older girl. This premiered at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival in the Directors' Fortnight section last year, and is arriving to watch in the US in June this summer. Bastien and Chloé spend their summer vacation with their families at a lake cabin in Quebec, haunted by a ghost legend. Ready to overcome his worst fears to earn a place in Chloé's heart, the holiday becomes a pivotal moment for him. Falcon Lake stars Joseph Engel, Sara Montpetit, Monia Chokri, Arthur Igual, and Karine Gonthier-Hyndman. This is quite an alluring trailer,...

Karolina (Inesa Sionova) and Rytis (Ajus Antanavicius) in Remember To Blink. Austėja Urbaitė: 'I see grown-ups in kids and I see kids in grown-ups. And I look for them behind the actions' Lithuanian writer/director Austėja Urbaitė’s first feature Remember To Blink is ambitious, as it charts a psychological tale of unexpected jealousy through the story of an adoption, which is told across two languages. When Lithuanian student Gabi (Dovile Kundrotaite) arrives in France to help Jacqueline (Anne Azoulay) and Leon (Arthur Igual) with their upcoming adoption of two young Lithuanian children, everything seems fine at first.

But soon the burgeoning sisterly relationship between Gabi and Rytis (Ajus Antanavicius) and his slightly older sister Karolina (Inesa Sionova) leads to an unspoken rivalry between Gabi and Jacqueline that becomes increasingly serious.

Austėja Urbaitė in Tallinn. Urbaitė: 'When you have something driving you from inside, you just do it' Photo:...

Serpentine imagery snakes through this debut from Austeja Urbaite. It also proves slippery in terms of genre with its tale of adoption beginning in traditional drama territory before slithering into an unpredictable psychological battle for control.

The life of French couple Jacqueline (Anne Azoulay) and Leon (Arthur Igual) seems pretty idyllic. They live in a countryside home, where they are in the process of welcoming Lithuanian student Gabi (Dovile Kundrotaite) whose job is to ease the passage of two youngsters from her country into the French family as their mother is giving them up. Signs that this may not be quite the paradise it first appears are indicated early on when we learn that they initially only wanted one child but agreed to the pair in a bid to speed the adoption. Still, when sensitive little Rytis (Ajus Antanavicius) and his slightly older sister Karolina (Inesa Sionova) arrive, everything goes well at.

Dangerous nature: Urbaité high on symbolism as she revives Gorgon myth in a French forest

Director Austéja Urbaité makes her feature debut with an adoption drama supplemented by themes of mysticism, jealousy and power dynamics. Perhaps due to the fact that Remember to Blink is the director’s debut, the work is in some ways quite ambitious and it establishes several themes of interest, which are seldom fully developed throughout the story.

French couple Jacqueline and Leon (Anne Azoulay and Arthur Igual) decide to adopt a pair of siblings from Lithuania. Since the children do not understand French, the couple hire a young girl, Gabriele (Dovile Kundrotaite), to initially help as a translator.…...

Memento International has boarded “Falcon Lake,” the feature debut of Quebec-born artist and actor Charlotte Le Bon which will world premiere at Cannes’ Directors’ Fortnight.

Penned by Le Bon, François Choquet and Karim Boucherka, “Falcon Lake” is adapted from Bastien Vivès’s graphic novel “A Sister.” The story follows Bastien, a 13-year old boy who moves with his family from Paris to a lakeside chalet in Quebec where he bonds in an unexpected way with Chloé, 16.

Joseph Engel and Sara Montpetit (“Maria Chapdelaine”) star in the film alongside Monia Chokri (“A Brother’s Love”), Arthur Igual, Karine Gonthier-Hyndman, Thomas Laperrière, Anthony Therrien, Pierre-Luc Lafontaine and Jeff Roop.

“When we are teenagers, our love life becomes the center of everything and it is easy to find ourselves in a turmoil of euphoria, fear and pain,” said Le Bon who has starred in films by Michel Gondry (“Mood Indigo”), Jalil Lespert (“Yves Saint...

Le Pacte has acquired international sales and French distribution rights to “Phil Tippett, Mad Dreams and Monsters,” a documentary directed by Gilles Penso and Alexandre Poncet, the pair behind the critically acclaimed documentary “The Frankenstein Complex.”

“Mad Dreams and Monsters” charts the sprawling career of Tippett, the animator and vfx artist who won two Oscars for his work on “The Return of the Jedi” and “Jurassic Park.” The documentary showcases exclusive archives from Tippett Studio and discusses his achievements through interviews with Tippett himself, as well as George Lucas, Steven Spielberg and Paul Verhoeven.

Le Pacte also handled “The Frankenstein Complex,” which shed light on the craft of movie creatures featured in blockbusters such as “King Kong,” “Avatar,” “Star Wars” and “The Lord of the Rings.”

“‘The Frankenstein Complex’ was a big hit for us — we sold it around the world,” said Camille Neel, head of international sales at Le Pacte,...

While at Series Mania Festival to present his mini-series “Thanksgiving” in competition, Nicolas Saada sat with Variety to discuss the spy drama which centers on the marriage between a Frenchman and American woman who are keeping secrets from each other.

Written by Saada and Anne-Louise Trividic, “Thanksgiving” was produced by Claude Chelli at Capa Drama, the thriving French banner behind “Versailles” and “Braquo,” for Franco-German network Arte. Newen Distribution is handling international sales on the series.

A former high-profile film critic, Saada previously wrote Frederic Jardin’s “Nuit Blanche,” which was remade into “Sleepless” with Jamie Foxx; and directed two films, “Spy(ies),” a London-set thriller with Guillaume Canet, and most recently “Taj Mahal,” a psychological thriller with Stacy Martin (“Nymphomaniac”) set against the backdrop of the 2008 Mumbai terrorist attack.

What’s the genesis of “Thanksgiving”?

It was Claude Chelli [the boss of Capa Drama] who approached me. He wanted to work with me and...

In 2017 many of us went to the movies to try and find what we feared we would lose in real life. I found myself particularly drawn to films led by women and people of color that would reassure me that there was something worth staying alive and fighting for when it seemed the world was on fire. By the third time I found myself sitting down to watch Wonder Woman on the big screen, popcorn and candy in hand, I realized I kept coming back because its powerful message compelled me to return. When Amazon princess Diana explains, “Only love can save this world. So I stay. I fight, and I give,” it was as if the movies were giving me a mission: go out and be the best person you can be, help others, and come back to us when you need to refuel. So, here’s what I...

By Jose Solís

Courtesy of Cinema Guild

Jérôme Reybaud 4 Days in France (which I reviewed here) is a sensual travelogue that follows Pierre (Pascal Cervo) a privileged Parisian man who leaves his lover (Arthur Igual) behind to go on an aimless road trip into the French countryside accompanied only by Grindr and his desire. An evocative, funny, and quite sexy film, 4 Days in France is surprisingly Reybaud’s directorial debut, quite the feat given how secure he is in his choices, and how much he relies on elements - gay sex onscreen, older female characters, poetic dialogues - that would make other filmmakers run for the woods, no pun intended.

As the film opens in New York and select markets in the Us, I spoke to Reybaud about his bold directorial choices, his fascination with online dating, and how he ended up casting a Tony nominated legend.

Jose: The first...

Among the sea of headless torsos and shirtless bathroom selfies that populate the symmetrical grid of gay hook-up app Grindr, one is also likely to find users who deem themselves as more of the romantic kind, who claim in their profiles that they are not interested in “meaningless sex.” In 4 Days in France, writer-director Jérôme Reybaud establishes that almost any connection between humans, whether physically or digitally, can never truly be meaningless. As the film opens we meet Pierre (Pascal Cervo) a boyishly handsome 36-year-old who stands in the darkness, shining a light over the body of his sleeping lover Paul (Arthur Igual). Pierre runs the light from head to toes, as if trying to take all of him in one last time, or perhaps, the first. Soon after Pierre is on the road in a white Alfa Romeo, carrying nothing but a small weekender bag and his phone open to Grindr,...

The queer French road movie 4 Days In France features three main characters. There’s Pierre (Pascal Cervo), a diminutive, soft-spoken guy in his 40s who’s apparently had enough, though it’s never made clear exactly why he gets into his white Alfa Romeo at the beginning of the film and just starts driving, with no destination in mind. There’s Paul (Arthur Igual), Pierre’s impressively mustachioed live-in boyfriend, who waits around in confusion for 24 hours before renting a cheap Volvo and setting out in pursuit. And then there’s Grindr, the gay networking app, which Pierre employs throughout the film as a means of finding strange men to screw and/or beds for the night, and which Paul uses to monitor Pierre’s ever-shifting location. Grindr’s distinctive notification alert becomes a running aural joke, and the turning point of Paul’s parallel storyline arrives when ...

Writer-director Jérôme Reybaud’s first feature film “4 Days in France” is being billed as a movie about a man who leaves his boyfriend for a road trip odyssey dictated by the mobile gay hook-up app Grindr. Yet nearly all of the scenes in this meandering 141-minute picture involve the protagonist Pierre (Pascal Cervo) being accosted on the road and elsewhere by vibrant and judgmental women. The film begins with a shot of Pierre’s sleeping lover Paul (Arthur Igual, “Stefan Zweig: Farewell to Europe”) as the light from Pierre’s phone illuminates his body. Pierre is soon out the door and driving.

The Summer Is GoneOne of the greater pleasures of New Directors/New Films, the yearly collaboration in New York between the Film Society of Lincoln Center and Museum of Modern Art, is reveling in the mystery of emerging directors. Of course, many and most festivals have offerings from first (and second and third time) directors, but at none is this explicitly the point. When a minimum of information is offered, save for a brief bio, relinquished is the burden of pre-viewing research and any expectations that may arise from it. More prominent titles have been covered by the Notebook already, but here are highlights from around the globe, from directors not-yet-known, though hopefully for not much longer. The Summer Is Gone echoes the ghosts of Edward Yang by locating drama in a particular moment in history, wedding personal histories to political ones. Set in inner Mongolia, the film throws back to the ever-receding 90s,...

In this weekend’s specialty box-office debuts, IFC Films hopes to replicate the critical and commercial success of Michael Winterbottom’s first amusing little travelogue/talker of a feature, The Trip, with a semi-sequel, The Trip To Italy. The second Trip again stars Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon; the entertainingly garrulous pair on yet another jaunt across restaurants, countryside and philosophy. The latest Trip will bow in NYC and La this weekend after a successful Australian run earlier this summer (or their winter).

Frank, a British-Irish-American drama from Magnolia Pictures featuring Michael Fassbender that had runs at Sundance and SXSW, bows in only one U.S. theater this weekend. Frank centers on an eccentric band, giving Fassy fans a chance to hear the Oscar-nominated actor sing, albeit from behind a mask (he’s not bad, actually).

Other notable new films include Philippe Garrel‘s Jealousy, which Distrib Films will expand...

Today’s film is the 2010 short Petit Tailleur. The film is written and directed by Louis Garrel, and stars Arthur Igual, Albert Igual, and Lea Seydoux. A seven-year acting veteran, Seydoux first came to the attention of American audiences in 2010′s Robin Hood, before major roles in 2011 in both Midnight in Paris and Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol. She made waves at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival, however, for her role in Blue Is The Warmest Color, sharing the Palme d’Or with the film’s director and her co-star. Blue Is The Warmest Color opened in limited release in American theatres this weekend.

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