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NARRATIVE FEATURES - AMERICAN INDEPENDENT COMPETITION - SPONSORED BY

Playing Sunday, March 26 at 2:15 PM at Regal - Purchase tickets
Playing Tuesday, March 28 at 6:30 PM at Regal* - Purchase tickets

SWEET LAND
USA, 2005, 110 MIN
DIRECTED BY ALI SELIM
SOUTHEAST PREMIERE
When you think “mail-order bride” the last thing you’d imagine is Inge Ottenberg (Elizabeth Reaser), a German immigrant in 1920s Minnesota who arrives at the train station in her prim dress with a big gramophone and little English. Inge has an angel’s face and a will of iron, but without the proper papers and with anti-German racism rampant, it’s not going to be that easy for her and Olaf, her painfully taciturn groom, to wed. First time feature director/writer Ali Selim turns out a gorgeous work, ten years in the making, based on a short story by Will Weaver. This gently understated period piece, winner of the Audience Award for Best Narrative Feature at the Hamptons International Film Festival, interweaves the stories of two generations and is bolstered by a collection of peculiar supporting characters (Ned Beatty, John Heard, and Alan Cumming). Themes of racial and religious prejudice; greed; and the slow, organic growth of a true, deep love are played out against the startling beauty of the huge blue skies, shimmering gold fields and simple homes of the American Midwest.