Pelle the Conqueror

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.