Trivia

The film is based on a real life true crime murder case where an Aboriginal man was arrested and put on trial for murdering a white man in central Australia during the 1920s.

The picture's director Warwick Thornton has said of this movie's filming locations and settings: "That landscape around Alice Springs is sacred. The MacDonnell Ranges are always in my mind from growing up there with my family. So, Sweet Country (2017) is a film about the land and our family, and what happened when the missionaries and pastoralists arrived."

David Tranter, the director of 'Willaberta Jack' (2007), and screenwriter and sound recordist for 'Sweet Country' (2017), has said: "-'Sweet Country' comes from my family. It was story from up in the Territory, north of Alice Springs and Philomac was my grandfather. I made a documentary about him and his older brother called 'Willaberta Jack'. Then I was in the Tiwi Islands with Steve McGregor and Murray Lui working on a film as the sound recordist. After the shoot we went back to the house and had a cup of tea and Murray said that Willaberta Jack story, that would make a great movie. And I said yeah - but I'm not a writer. But I wanted to try so I went and bought myself a couple of sketch books, and I started drawing the story in pictures and it took me about two weeks. Then I sat down with Stephen Cleary who helped me type it up into a treatment. I took it to the Ignite Screenwriting workshop and they helped me get 128 pages written in four days. I was real proud of myself. In the end we did three drafts and I sent each draft to David Jowsey and Steven Mcgregor, and Steven was the one who got the script to the point of making it. Me personally, I'm just happy to share the story with Australia, with the rest of the world. I'm just pinching myself too, you know, there's been great reviews. But I just really hope that Australia will embrace it, and have a look at their past because it's not just our story, it's everybody's story."

Reportedly, the character of the teenage boy Philomac is actually portrayed by two actors, Trevorn Doolan and Tremayne Doolan, who are both brothers and also twins.

Many local townspeople of the Australian outback town of Alice Springs in the Northern Territory appeared in the film as extras and background artists.