One takeaway from 2024 is that both Icelandic director Rúnar Rúnarsson and actress Elín Hall have become two names to look out for in the future. The pair teamed up for Rúnar’s new feature When the Light Breaks, which started its journey at Cannes and has continued to the most recent London Film Festival.

While Rúnar’s previous work with Volcano, Sparrows, and Echo are hard to come by here in the UK, you will find one of Elín’s standout performances in Let Me Fall, which is currently available on Amazon Prime. This film by director Baldvin Z was released in 2018 and is a harrowing portrait of addiction based on true stories from the families of addicts.

Elín’s performance in this really caught our attention, but it’s not just acting she seems to have a talent for, as she has also released an album and worked on numerous other projects, so seeing her pair up with Rúnar was very exciting.

“Rúnar is, in my opinion, one of Iceland’s best directors and storytellers,” the actress explains when we catch up with her at the London Film Festival. “I feel most fortunate when I get to work with people that don’t seem to have another option in their life – they’re moved by this urge to tell a story, and he always seemed to me to be that kind of a director.“

In When the Light Breaks Elín plays the role of a student called Una, who wakes up one morning to the tragic news that her secret lover has died in a fatal accident. We follow her throughout the day as she processes her grief. The role felt bizarrely meta for the actress who had only recently graduated from the same college.

“I had just graduated from the same college, where the Fine Arts Department and the Theatre Department are in the same building, so going back there was a bit strange, I will admit. The actor who portrayed my teacher in the film was actually a teacher in the drama department who taught me,” she smiles.

Rúnar has been making short films since he was 16 before moving on to features, many of which have a documentary-style feel to them. His previous film Echo, is a personal favourite of mine to watch at Christmas. Described as a collection of short clips following various people’s lives and scenarios in the build-up to Christmas and into the New Year, which don’t necessary link together. The film is a joy to watch, blending general observation with thought-provoking moments of the mundane, sadness, and humour.

Speaking about the making of Echo, the director says: “I didn’t have a full story in me and there was nothing in my heart that was big enough to have been translated into a feature film. I was getting a bit tired of this defined structure that films need to take, as real life is a lot more nuanced than that. I like to explore the grey areas, the full spectrum of experience and emotion, and capture all these beautiful moments in life without the film having to have a ‘meaning’ or moral to tell.“

The director beautifully describes the film like a trip to the seaside when you “Collect all these different stones and seashells and things. Some of them look beautiful, shiny, and have a nice surface to them, some might be just plain, or dull. But when you come home and put everything on the kitchen table, shuffle it around, all of a sudden you have a mosaic.”

The director’s follow-up here is different in style, following a group’s journey through grief: “Grief is one of the themes we are portraying in this film. Grief is about releasing a lot of different emotions; something that can make you extremely sad can also give you a sense of enormous beauty.” As we’ve learned, Runar enjoys exploring the spectrum of human emotion and allowing his films to be raw reflections of messy real life and not bound by a ‘Hollywood’ structure.

Upon reading the script, Elín’s initial thoughts were: “Oh, my God! This is 50 shades of sad – I don’t want this character to be like this the whole time.” But pairing with Rúnar helped the actress explore the depths of her character and role: “This is 24 hours with a character – I wanted to explore the spectrum of this character’s emotions in this time frame. There were plenty of ways to do it, but for me, it was very much about spending time with Rúnar and my co-stars.”

She goes on to explain how time was one of the most critical things for the film; “Runar stands guard of time for his actors. He will never rush the scene – some days we might shoot for 12 hours doing one scene. He is certainly a perfectionist.” Runar would also work at stripping away dialogue, allowing music, body language and expression to convey meaning and tell the viewer what is going on and what is being felt by the characters.

The music plays a big role in this film; Runar explains how the integrated music was chosen in collaboration with the cast and their characters, making them feel more authentic and believable. The main theme music we hear throughout and as the film comes to a close was chosen by Runar from past work by talented Icelandic composer Jóhann Jóhannsson, who grew up on the same street as Runar.

The track, Odi Et Amo, sounds haunting, ethereal, divine; evoking thoughts of death, god, heaven, and beauty, with lyrics in old Latin. The music and lyrics speak to the essence of being human – of the conflict and contradictions between light and dark, sadness and happiness, love and hate.

As humans, we are fragile, and flawed, full of emotions – but we must strive to be better and move towards the light.

When The Light Breaks hits UK Cinemas from the 23rd May 2025