Summary

In this sensual, intense, indie feature drama, a quartet of teenage girls embark on a canoe-and-camping trip with a slightly older male guide in the endless wilderness of the Canadian Shield. His younger sister Steph – who is desperately afraid of the water – is one of the campers. Once the group is underway, romantic tensions erupt and disaster strikes, forcing the girls to face a grueling and desperate trip back to civilization. Shot in tight close-ups with a fluid camera that sees the landscape first as an embodiment of desire and second as a distortion of reality, "Surviving Crooked Lake" crackles with suspense and intrigue. It will leave you wondering about the mysteries of the adolescent heart and mind, the bonds of family, and to the looming influence of nature and landscape. "Surviving Crooked Lake" makes for an elemental example of the cinematic survival story, in the tradition of "Deliverance" and "Open Water."