An intense drama focusing on friendships and grief, When the Light Breaks by Icelandic director Rúnar Rúnarsson has just won the top prize at Cinehill, Croatia’s main cinematic celebration.
Premiered at Cannes this May, where it opened the Un Certain Regard section, this Icelandic-language feature is a co-production between Croatia, France, Holland and Iceland. It was one of the original founders of Cinehill predecessor, the Motovun Film Festival, and current chairman of the European Film Academy, Mike Downey, who co-produced the film in Croatia with Igor A Nola’s Zagreb-based MP Films.
Named the Propeller after the top prize at Motovun, the prime award was given to When the Light Breaks for “its poetic and subtle filmic language, delicate acting and storytelling, dealing with an unexpected difficult situation in a way that captivates the audience with the dramatic arc of its original characters”.
As we recently announced, UK punk documentarist Julien Temple was granted an honorary Maverick Award by Cinehill at the five-day long festival. Kosovar director Ilir Hasanaj won the award for best short film for Workers’ Wings, spotlighting the sacrifices made by manual labourers, while Nans Laborde-Jourdàa was granted a special prize for Boléro, a film about provincial escape set in a men’s toilets in a supermarket in the Pyrenees.
Taking place at Petehovac in Gorski kotar, Cinehill screens films at several locations, including an open-air cinema where viewers sit on hay bales, and in nearby towns such as Delnice, Moravica and Lokava. In all, 98 works were shown, including ten premieres.