# When the Light Breaks

When the Light Breaks (Icelandic: Ljósbrot, lit. 'Refraction') is a 2024 drama film by Rúnar Rúnarsson. The film depicts a young woman grieving for her first love's death during one summer day.
It was selected as the opening film for the Un Certain Regard selection of the 2024 Cannes Film Festival, where it had its world premiere on 15 May 2024.

## Cast

* Elín Hall as Una
* Mikael Kaaber as Gunni
* Katla Njálsdóttir as Klara
* Ágúst Wigum as Bassi
* Gunnar Hrafn Kristjánsson as Siggi
* Baldur Einarsson as Diddi

## Plot

The film's events take place over a single day in Iceland. It opens with Diddi and Una in the early stage of a relationship. They go from an ocean outlook to Diddi's house that he shares with mutual friend Gunni. They talk in bed . Diddi leaves early; Una, hearing Gunni come home, sneaks out. Jóhann Jóhannsson's requiem, "Odi et Amo" (Latin for "I Love and I Hate") plays, as an extended sequence of lights in the dark is revealed to be lighting in a road tunnel which is engulfed in an enormous fireball.
Later that morning, Una and Gunni meet at the arts college where they and Diddi study. Una has not heard about the tunnel disaster - the worst in Iceland's history - and then comforts Gunni as he reveals Diddi may have been in the tunnel at the time. The group of friends gather at a Red Cross centre, where they learn Diddi has died.
Una leaves, unable to process. After a brief reconciliation with her father, she rejoins the friends at a bar, where she meets Klara, Diddi's girlfriend. Klara reveals to Una that Diddi had said she was a lesbian, but Una reveals she is pansexual. She says her last relationship was with a man. A private conversation between Una and Gunni confirms that Una and Diddi were having a covert affair, but Diddi had told Gunni. Una confesses she resents Klara as Diddi's public girlfriend, while she must simply be the grieving friend as their relationship was covert.
The country, meanwhile, has fallen into national mourning for the tragedy. The friends go to an impromptu service of mourning at Hallgrímskirkja, Iceland's largest church. When Klara and Una leave the service for a cigarette, Klara disparages the performance art the friends were creating, but Una is able to show her how it reveals other perspectives.
They then go to one of their houses and have a tear-filled party. As the party ends, Una and Klara stand on either side of a glass door, their reflections merging. The film ends with them lying close together in bed. The film references the opening sequence by again playing "Odi et Amo" as a sequence of lights on water are revealed to be reflection of the setting sun on the ocean.

## Production

When the Light Breaks is a co-production between Iceland, the Netherlands, Croatia and France. Heather Millard produced the film for Compass Films with Rúnar Rúnarsson's company Halibut, in co-production with Revolver Amsterdam, MP Film Production, Eaux Vives Productions and Jour2Fête.

## Release

Jour2Fête is scheduled to release the film in France on 19 February 2025. It was released in Iceland in August 2024.

## Reception

On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 96% of 24 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 7.1/10. Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 80 out of 100, based on 5 critics, indicating "generally favorable" reviews.
The film won the Dragon Award Best Nordic Film at the 48th Göteborg Film Festival.