When the Light Comes

Ellen Vanderlaan wants to finally go her own way after finishing highschool. After a boattrip she ends up in Spitsbergen where she will spend a winter among the ice floes and endless white tundra with the Norwegian fur trapper Lars. Things do not live up to her expectations: she has trouble adapting to the hard live in the Arctic Circle and Lars is not the he man she had imagined. An ice-cold atmosphere reigns in the wooden hut thanks to the lack of communication and the fact that Lars keeps making sexual innuendos. As time passes, Ellen realises she will have to adapt to make life bearable. When the Light Comes is based on the autobiographical novel by Heleen van der Laan. (Nederlands Film Festival)