An elderly widowed farmer and his son Pelle leave the impoverished south of Sweden aboard an emigrant ship, setting out for the Danish island of Bornholm, which they dream of as a kind of Promised Land. On Bornholm, Lasse finds work as a poorly paid farm laborer. Over the next two years, Pelle is constantly subjected to humiliation and abuse for being a foreigner. Yet as he grows older, he refuses to lose hope, continuing to dream of the better life he and his father imagined back in Sweden.
🏆 Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival. The film is included in the Danish Culture Canon — a list of the most important works of Danish culture.