Pelle Hvenegaard

Who is Pelle Hvenegaard?

Pelle Hvenegaard is a Danish actor and writer, best known for his role in the award-winning film Pelle the Conqueror, a Danish-Swedish co-production filmed on Zealand and Bornholm, Denmark that was released in Sweden December 25, 1987. Directed by Danish filmmaker Bille August, the film was a huge critical success and went on to win the Golden Palm at the Cannes Film Festival of 1988 and the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film the same year.

The filming started when he was only 11 years old and he won Youth in Film Award, Best Foreign Actor 1988. The co-star Max von Sydow playing his father, was nominated for an Oscar. It is based on a critically acclaimed series of novels by socialist writer Martin Andersen Nexø about the life of a Swedish boy named Pelle who moves to Denmark with his father Lasse for a better life, only to end up running away and becoming a labour leader who leads his followers to freedom. Pelle Hvenegaard was coincidentally named after the Pelle of Nexø's writings.