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Forest management stirs up controversies. To create or feed those controversies, the documentary film can be a weapon of choice. This case study focuses on L’erreur boréale (Forest Alert) to assess how communication around a controversy can help capture the complexity of an environmental issue. Hence we developed a mixed research design that combines a similarity analysis to a thematic content analysis, both relying on social representations (SR) theory. The analysis suggests a clear transformation in the conceptualizations of forests as a result of the controversy. Before L’erreur boréale, five SRs emerged, mostly anchored in a work universe. After, only the foreshadowing of possible SRs seems to appear, as forests are conceived based on the problems they raise. The results suggest that analyzing the coverage of an environmental controversy makes it possible to better understand its complexity.