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Weston Film Club – Sweet Land

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Weston Film Club - Sweet Land

When

February 6, 2025    
1:30 pm - 4:15 pm

Where

Weston Public Library
87 School Street, Weston, MA, 02493

Event Type

 2005, 110 minutes

“Let us hope that we are preceded in this world by a love story.”

This is the sentiment behind Sweet Land––a project that took director Ali Selim and producer Robin Selim sixteen years to realize, starting from the time they first read Will Weaver’s short story, “A Gravestone Made of Wheat.”

The film opens with some hard scenes involving the passing of beloved grandparents Olaf in 1968 and Inge in 2004. It falls to their grandson Lars to liquidate the Minnesota family farm, and when he finds an old hand-colored photograph, the love story that preceded him is set in motion, recalling when his grandmother Inge came over from Scandinavia as a mail-order bride in 1920.

As played by Elizabeth Reaser, urbane and educated Inge is an awkward match for the shy, taciturn Olaf. And when it is revealed that she is actually German––and therefore a recent enemy alien––the neighbors are scandalized, as they are Norwegians determined to become upstanding Americans. The local minister refuses to marry them and with nowhere else to go, an exasperated Inge stays on with Olaf, causing both of them to be shunned by the community. Alone and facing a near-impossible harvest without the cooperation of their fellow farmers, a love story commences.

BE ADVISED–This film is rated PG, with brief nudity, mild language, mortality, financial peril, and lovelorn Norwegian bachelor farmers.

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