Demonstrating a mastery of the medium that belies his status as a first-time feature filmmaker, writer-director Ali Selim has crafted in "Sweet Land" a tale of pure Americana that speaks both to the immigrant experience and the nature of love. The film has played the festival circuit, where it understandably won two audience awards. Taking off from a short story by Minnesota writer Will Weaver, Selim tells the simple but emotion-packed story of a mail-order bride who arrives in a close-knit Norwegian farming community in Minnesota after World War I. There is only one problem.

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