In the last winter of World War Ⅱ, fourteen-year-old Michiel is forced to become a resistance fighter when he nurses British pilot from a crashed fighter back to health and hides him from the Germans. Caught between the father he perceives as bordering on collaboration, demands from those around him he is unsure are trustworthy and his own conscience, Michiel soon comes to realize that there is a vast chasm between the adventure fantasy of youth and wartime reality. A coming-of-age story, [Winter in Wartime] is a heartbreaking and sensitive illustration of a boy’s personal growth and his slow understanding of how good and evil go hand in hand. Both intensely internal and outwardly epic, the film trades in a realism that informs every snow-swept scene. Ultimately, when Michiel accepts the fact that his life, home and world as he knows will never be the same again, it comes as a crushing loss of innocence and ironically triumphant maturation.