The U.S. in the 1870s, teeming with new settlers and outlaws as well. Danish immigrant Jon has been waiting for years to bring his wife and son to the United States. When he finally succeeds, moments after their arrival they fall victim to a horrific crime. Out of grief and despair Jon kills the perpetrator. His actions set off a chain reaction. His victim's brother is the ruthless Colonel Delarue who is terrorizing the town of Black Creek and will stop at nothing to avenge his brother. Betrayed and ostracized by the community, Jon must transform himself from peaceful settler to fearless warrior to save the town and find peace. "Ever since I was a child I have loved westerns. Making The Salvation was like reliving my childhood imagination of a world that, in every sense of the word, was far away from my life. The Salvation is a tribute to the classic American western. In filmic terms the western is archaic. There have been many times that I've asked myself why I wanted to go back to a genre that some call dead. The simple answer is that John Ford, Sergio Leone, Akira Kurosawa are some of my biggest heroes." [Kristian Levring]

Kristian Levring (1957, Denmark) started out in 1988 directing commercials. In 1995, alongside Lars Von Trier, Thomas Vinterberg and Soren Kragh-Jacobsen, Levring was one of the four co-founders of the Dogme 95 movement. Five years later he directed the fourth Dogme in the series, The King Is Alive, which premiered in Cannes (Un Certain Regard). In 2002 he directed The Intended, starring Academy Award® winners Olympia Dukakis and Brenda Fricker, which premiered at Toronto. After authoring four screenplays, Levring returned to directing in 2008 with the highly acclaimed Fear Me Not, which was selected for the San Sebastian and Toronto International Film Festivals. At the Mar del Plata Festival, this film garnered two awards, Best Actor for Ulrich Thomsen and Best Screenplay for Levring and Anders Thomas Jensen, with whom he would co-write The Salvation. Levring's next film will be Detroit, written by Lars Von Trier.