Levring 's western film titled '' The Salvation '' , starred Mads Mikkelsen and was screened at the 2014 Cannes Film Festival , where it became an Official Selection . Levring filmed the movie in South Africa , setting it in the American frontier . The story follows the character Jon , a Danish " ex-soldier who moved to the States after losing to the Germans on the battlefield in 1864 , " according to '' Variety '' . Levring has stated that during this era , about half of all people on the American frontier did not speak English , which was the entry-point for him to produce a film about the American west . In developing the film , Levring used both Western films and Nordic mythology as inspiration . In an interview with '' Reader 's Digest '' , Levring stated of the film 's subject matter that , " You could see the Western frontier as the beginning of civilization , and I ’m very interested in the nature of civilization . Often these places are a microscope : you can look at these characters and see how they behave in quite extreme situations . Civilization is quite a thin varnish , and when you take that away it ’s interesting to see what happens . " Levring both cowrote and directed the film
2014 Cannes Film Festival
2014 Cannes Film Festival
Kristian Levring