One of the highlights of the upcoming 2024 Saxo Scandinavian Film Festival is WHEN THE LIGHT BREAK (Ljosbrot), which opened the Un Certain Regard section of the 2024 Cannes Film Festival.
This deceptively simple film chronicles a day in the life of graduating Performance Art student Una (Elin Hall). In the 24 hours from one beautiful sunset to the next, a catastrophe occurs that changes her life and that of her small group of friends forever.
Una is an enigmatic figure and Hall’s is a stellar performance. On the surface, Una appears to be an ultra-cool art student, but we, the audience, know of her secret love. We can empathise with the heartbreak and emotions that are tearing her apart. Only one other person, Gunni (Mikael Kaaber), shares her potentially explosive secret. Together, they stoically protect their friends by staying silent, knowing full well how potentially devastating revelation of the truth could be to each of them. Over the course of the day, they must all transition to adulthood.
Over the course of the film’s enthralling, engaging 82 minutes, director Runar Runarsson reveals some salient background details about what has brought Una, Gunni and the others together in Reykjavik, but overall his film exemplifies the mottos ‘less is more’ and ‘don’t tell me, show me’.
In keeping with Runarsson’s economic screenplay, cinematographer Sophia Olsson keeps the visual uncluttered. Production designer Hulda Helgadottir and costume designer Helga Ros Hannam deftly show us much about each character.
If WHEN THE LIGHT BREAKS (Ljosbrot) is indicative of the quality of the films collated for this, the 10th Scandinavian Film Festival, we are in for some great viewing.
The 2024 Saxo Scandinavian Film Festival opens in Sydney on July 24 and closes on August 14 2024.
https://scandinavianfilmfestival.com/
