Set over the course of one winter, the most autobiographical and arguably best film to date from acclaimed writer/director Christophe Honoré (Sorry Angel, AF FFF19) follows a young man on the cusp of adulthood who, after being sent reeling by an unexpected loss, looks for comfort in all the wrong places.

17-year-old Lucas (played by terrific newcomer Paul Kircher) is drifting through his final year of boarding school, blithely passing time with his boyfriend, but mostly looking forward to following his older brother Quentin (Vincent Lacoste, Lost Illusions, AF FFF22), a fledgling artist, to Paris. A sudden accident soon strips away everything Lucas has taken for
granted, filling him with an anger that his teenage self can’t begin to articulate. His mother Isabelle (Juliette Binoche, Between Two Worlds, AF FFF22) is unable to find the means to console him, so Lucas heads to the city to spend a week with Quentin and his flatmate.

Honoré’s gift for building narratives around flawed characters is as strong as ever, and with Winter Boy he confronts his own history as never before. The filmmaker has lived a version of Lucas’s story, and his profound honesty about and empathy for his three leads drives every scene.