Sweet Land is a 2005 American independent period drama film written and directed by Ali Selim. It is an adaptation of the 1989 short story "A Gravestone Made of Wheat" by Will Weaver. The film stars Elizabeth Reaser, Tim Guinee, Lois Smith, Ned Beatty, John Heard, Alex Kingston and Alan Cumming. It premiered at the Hamptons International Film Festival on October 21, 2005, and went into limited release on December 1, 2006. The film won an Independent Spirit Award for Best First Feature.

Plot

In the aftermath of World War I, Inge Altenberg, an orphan from Snåsa, Norway, arrives in America to a very cold reception. The parents of immigrant farmer Olaf Torvik remain in Norway, where they met her. Dialogue reveals that the four of them have worked out an agreement that allowed her to emigrate to America for the purpose of marrying Olaf. The Minnesota farming village of Audubon, in which her intended husband lives, is horrified to learn that she is a German immigrant with no papers. To make matters worse, she has accidentally obtained membership papers for the American Socialist Party. Scandalized, both the town's Lutheran minister and the county clerk refuse to marry them.