Dénes Nagy walking away with the Silver Bear for Best Director at this year's Berlinale was a surprise, even despite the good streak of Hungarian films at international festivals maintained by the likes of Kornél Mundruczó, Ildikó Enyedi and László Nemes. While being slightly less known and experienced, in Natural Light, an adaptation of Pál Závada's novel of the same title, however, the director shows great maturity and formal discipline. Nagy’s full-length debut, immersed in a gloomy, fatalistic aura, is set during WW II in the Soviet Union. The director focuses on a topic rarely seen in cinema - the involvement of Hungarian soldiers in the occupation of Soviet villages. The central figure is officer István Semetka, who, after the unexpected death of a commander, has to take his place and lead the decimated unit to rendez-vous with the main force. The film stands out not only for its dazzling, naturalistic cinematography by Tamás Dobos, which brings out a rare kind of beauty from a winter landscape drowning in mud, but also the excellent, subdued role of Ferenc Szabó, who shows the hero's moral dilemmas with great sensitivity. Nagy's film also echoes Alexei German's outstanding Trial on the Road.