PELLE THE CONQUEROR Screens This Weekend at Webster University

“You’ll have to go without me, Pelle. I don’t have strength to travel anymore. I’m too old. Too old. I don’t have a future. Do you understand?”

PELLE THE CONQUEROR (1987) screens Friday April 28th through Sunday April 30th at Webster University’s Moore Auditorium (470 East Lockwood). The movie starts at 7:30 all three evenings.

In the Oscar-winning classic PELLE THE CONQUEROR, Lassefar (Max von Sydow), an elderly and widowed farmer, and his young son Pelle (Belle Hvenegaard), join a boat-load of immigrants to escape from impoverished rural Sweden to Denmark’s Baltic island of Bornholm. They are employed at a large farm in Denmark, where they are treated as the lowest of the low. It is ultimately their loving relationship, which sustains them through a difficult year. PELLE THE CONQUEROR offers a deep insight into the life of immigrants from one country of Scandenavia to the other. Strange though it may seem today in the wake of current super-stardom of these countries in the arena of human development, the story remains true in nature, honest in details, dedicated to truth.

PELLE THE CONQUEROR received the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 1989.  The critics at the time raved:

Kevin Thomas at The L.A. Times said:

“The film is a towering achievement, grueling in its portrayal of a harsh existence yet ultimately an exhilarating experience unlikely to be forgotten.”

Tom Hutchinson at Radio Times claimed:

“Director Bille August’s adaptation of the first part of Nobel Prize winner Martin Andersen Nexo’s four-volume novel is genuine life-affirming drama.”

and Kim Newman at Empire Magazine crowed:

“Director Bille August and ace Scandinavian cameraman Per Holst make the film a visual treat.”

Admission is:

$6 for the general public
$5 for seniors, Webster alumni and students from other schools
$4 for Webster University staff and faculty

Free for Webster students with proper I.D.

Advance tickets are available from the cashier before each screening or contact the Film Series office (314-246-7525) for more options. The Film Series can only accept cash or check.

The Webster University Film Series site can be found HERE

http://www.webster.edu/film-series/