Mads Mikkelsen (Another Round) returns after playing the villain in Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny to play Captain Ludvig Kahlen, a tough and dry man of unknown father, low class, and meager income who is determined to bet everything on his future. He does so in The Promised Land, the biographical drama that has just been released on Movistar Plus+.

It is an exciting drama in the form of a western that speaks of ambition, power, revenge, love, and forgiveness. This film is based on true events and set in 18th-century Denmark, with the Danish Crown determined to make the wasteland of Jutland habitable.

For decades, all attempts to settle in the area have failed miserably, but Captain Ludvig Kahlen is clear that he wants to carve out a place for himself in the location and conquer the harsh and inhospitable Danish wastelands with an apparently impossible goal: to create a colony in the name of the king.

In order to do so, he must face not only a barren land filled with bandits but also the fierce opposition of Frederik Schinkel (Simon Bennebjerg), a cruel landowner convinced that the wastelands belong to him.

When Schinkel realizes that his maid Ann Barbara and her servile husband have escaped to take refuge with Kahlen, the privileged and resentful ruler swears vengeance and promises to do everything in his power to drive the captain away.

But Kahlen is not easily intimidated and embarks on a battle so uneven that it will not only endanger his life but also the family of marginalized individuals that has formed around him.

Directed by Nikolaj Arcel, who previously worked with Mikkelsen on A Royal Affair, The Promised Land (The Bastard) is based on the novel Kaptajnen og Ann Barbara, in which Danish writer Ida Jessen recreates - with some creative license - the real story of Ludvig Kahlen.

Beyond the plot

Mads Mikkelsen in 'The Promised Land'

Captain Ludvig Kahlen was a real person credited with being "the first person to venture onto the wasteland and successfully plant something". It was said that he was a proud but poor military man, the illegitimate son of a wealthy landowner and a housemaid.

After serving in the German army, Kahlen returned to Denmark in 1755 with a very meager pension and decided to ask the king for permission to cultivate uncultivated land. In exchange, if this succeeded, Kahlen would receive a title.

About the real background of the film, Nikolaj Arcel mentioned in an interview that Kahlen was "a completely unknown figure, actually". Apart from the film and the novel, there is very little information available about this person, although the film director has acknowledged that he did his best to be "faithful to the book first and to Ida Jessen's vision afterwards".