Winter In Wartime review

January 1945, and Holland is still under Nazi occupation.

Thirteen-year-old Michiel, son of the village mayor, despises his dad for conciliating the Germans and worships his Uncle Ben, who’s in the Resistance. But when he finds a wounded British pilot hiding in the woods, things get complicated – and Michiel’s forced to realise that people aren’t always what they seem.

Martin Koolhoven’s film makes telling use of his snow-bound landscapes to suggest the frozen limbo-time the Dutch found themselves in, knowing liberation was imminent but not daring to anticipate it – and never being sure just who to trust.