The Promised Land (2023)
Director: Nikolaj Arcel Run Time: 127 min. Rating: R Release Year: 2023
Starring: Amanda Collin, Gustav Lindh, Kristine Kujath Thorp, Mads Mikkelsen, Simon Bennebjerg
Country: Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Germany
Language: Danish with English subtitles
About the film:
World Premiere, 2023 Venice Film Festival
Official Selection, 2023 Toronto Film Festival
Denmark’s entry for Best International Feature at the 96th Academy Awards
In 18th century Denmark, Captain Ludvig Kahlen (Mads Mikkelsen) — a proud, ambitious, but impoverished war hero — sets out to tame a vast, uninhabitable land. He seeks to start farming crops, build a colony in the name of the King, and gain a noble title for himself. This beautiful but forbidding area also happens to be under the rule of the merciless Frederik De Schinkel, a preening nobleman who realizes the threat Kahlen represents to his power.
“An invigoratingly savage Nordic western… an expansive, sweeping epic with hope in its heart and dirt under its nails.”
—Wendy Ide, Screen Daily
Struggling against the elements and local brigands, Kahlen is joined by a couple who have fled the clutches of the rapacious ruler. As this group of misfits begins to build a small community in this inhospitable place, De Schinkel swears vengeance, and the confrontation between him and Kahlen promises to be as violent and intense as these two men.
About the filmmaker:
Nikolaj Arcel is a Danish director and screenwriter. His feature film A Royal Affair (2012) won the Silver Bear for best script at the 2012 Berlin Film Festival and was nominated for an Academy Award in the Best Foreign Language category in 2013. His most recent feature The Promised Land (2023) competed for the Golden Lion at the 2023 Venice Film Festival and was selected as Denmark’s entry for Best International Feature at the 96th Academy Awards. He has also written a large number of scripts, including the adaptation of the first film in the highly acclaimed Millenniumtrilogy, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2009), based on the bestselling book by Stieg Larsson. The film earned Arcel a BAFTA nomination in 2011.
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