In January 2026, The Last Resort, the latest film by Norwegian writer-director Maria Sødahl, won the Dragon Award for Best Nordic Film at the Göteborg Film Festival (see the news). The movie is currently part of this year's EUROPE! Voices of Women+ in Film programme at the Festival do Rio, a collaboration between European Film Promotion and international partner festivals. The story centres on a Danish family whose luxury holiday is shattered by a fateful accident involving an Afghan asylum seeker, forcing them to question how much they should risk to help a person in need.

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The cast of The Last Resort is led by Danica Ćurčić and Esben Smed. They play Louise and Mikkel, a middle-class Danish couple treating themselves and their two daughters, Sille and Ella, to an all-inclusive holiday in Gran Canaria. However, their break takes a dramatic turn when Mikkel hits an undocumented migrant named Ahmad (Aziz Capkurt) with his rental car on an unlit road, severely injuring him. Driven by guilt, Louise and Mikkel try to help Ahmad, but as he appears more frequently at the resort and starts asking for money, their compassion turns to suspicion as they also feel the need to protect their daughters.

By confining the story to the resort's microcosm, the screenwriting trio, Therese Hasman, Maria Sødahl and Eske Troelstrup, dissect Europe's handling of the refugee crisis. A Norwegian couple fantasises about repelling refugees with an ultrasonic pest device. Other guests have travelled there specifically to help, while the Spanish staff fear that the boatloads of refugees arriving on the resort’s beach will ruin their livelihoods. Louise and Mikkel want to help but feel helpless, which puts a strain on their marriage. Meanwhile, refugees live in squalor and traffickers target unaccompanied children. The film also makes it clear that feelings of mistrust and helplessness do not necessarily make someone racist, even if they can lead to unintentionally racist acts.

The feature’s particular strength lies in its two young actresses and Sødahl’s sensitive direction, which creates a safe space for vulnerability, just as she did in her acclaimed 2019 drama Hope. Sif Lucca Gersby, playing 11-year-old Sille, and Chili Olivia Jensen, playing six-year-old Ella, bring striking authenticity to their roles. Allowed to be children, they are disarming, direct and perceptive. They ask the uncomfortable questions that adults shy away from, and their childlike empathy highlights how quickly adult compassion can become conditional and negotiable.

And then there is the stray cat with the Syrian name tag that wanders through the resort. It asks for nothing, yet receives more immediate affection than Ahmad. We never learn whether it truly is a stray, or whether it belongs to someone – perhaps it is an asylum seeker’s only source of comfort. What looks like a well-intentioned rescue operation in the end is therefore not salvation, but dispossession – the removal of the last piece of home that a refugee has managed to keep.

The Last Resort was produced by Denmark’s Nordisk Film Production A/S, in co-production with Norway’s Eye Eye Pictures. Its international sales are handled by TrustNordisk.