Hatide earns a living by selling honey in the country's capital Skopje, which is four hours away from the village. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/29/world/europe/honeyland-north-macedonia-bees.html. She herself lives in what amounts to a hole in the rock, a cave-like hut where she tends her ancient mother as gently and patiently as she tends her bees. [20] Kotevska said the most suitable description of the documentary's main theme is modern consumerism. Listen on Apple Podcasts. One of the more unlikely films competing in this weekend's Oscars is a fascinating story about a wild beekeeper in the Balkans. . Read full review. So this is her wish, in a way. You can see this in our film - in both families, it doesn't make a difference what [gender] they are, they all doing the same things.". And as humans, how could they ever not? When Hatidze went for a dress fitting for the Oscars in the North Macedonian capital Skopje, it took "20 minutes for her to walk 200 metres because so many people wanted to have a selfie with. Calm and gentle, Ms. Muratova has a deep and respectful relationship with nature, treating her bees almost as collaborators. VideoChess gets a risqu makeover, The Nigerian influencers paid to manipulate your vote, How a baffling census delay is hurting Indians, How Mafia boss was caught at a clinic after 30 years. "This was the most valuable lesson for us as the authors of the future films. But Kotevska's main impression of Los Angeles is: "From the tall buildings, I cannot see the stars.". The 225 Best Horror Movies of All Time Sam disregards Hatide's advice to always leave half of the honey for his bees and proceeds to sell the entire stock of honey. In Honeyland, Hatidze's echo of paradise is most certainly lost. [31] Rating it with three stars out of four, Michael O'Sullivan from The Washington Post said despite the worthwhile patience it requires from viewers, the film "sneaks up on you in a quiet yet powerful way". Honeyland opens this way: near-wordlessly, attending to the rituals of Hatidze's day, her trips to the nearest city to sell her honey. When Hatidze went for a dress fitting for the Oscars in the North Macedonian capital Skopje, it took "20 minutes for her to walk 200 metres because so many people wanted to have a selfie with. Critics have viewed it as a film that also explores anthropological topics. He takes all the honey from his own hives, but his bees respond to this by attacking Hatidze's hives, leading to their destruction, and a conflict between the human neighbours. And I can feel that she feels that this is not her only home.. Kotevska and Stefanov's camera captures the duo's nighttime bickering with remarkable intimacy, as. "The love that she was keeping for a family of her own, that never came true, eventually went to the bees," says Kotevska. Complicating matters: They didn't speak Turkish, the preferred language of the film's main subjects both Hatidze and her new neighbors who moved in a few months into the shoot and disrupted her. [5][6], On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, Honeyland has an approval rating of 100% based on 124 reviews, and an average rating of 8.4/10. She now divides her time between the two villages. Films selected for the Series receive exclusive access to an audience of tastemakers and doc lovers during the important Awards campaigning season from September through November. Indeed, the contrast could not be more stark to Hatidze's solitary life in Bekirlija, where she tends her hives of wild bees, only ever taking half the honey so the bees would always have their due. "Everything we've heard from Hatidze refers to bees. Description. "Honeyland" introduces us to Hatidze Muratova, a great character and a natural-born movie star. [25][26] The camerawork, which is steady during the first half of the movie, later becomes less steady with the arrival of the nomadic neighbors. He elaborated, "a sensitivity to both petty human concerns and striking natural beauty is what makes Honeyland a particularly enthralling documentary. When they were asking for my hand?, Hatidze seems to wonder about the paths her life might have taken. (and find out what happened to Hatidze). You can't miss her. Aremote village in the mountains of Macedonia is the setting for Honeyland, a documentary by Tamara Kotevska and Ljubomir Stefanov that follows Hatidze Muratova as she maneuvers through . She lives by that simple principle. After another year editing, their first feature film was born. [40] According to the website's critical consensus, "Honeyland uses life in a remote village to offer an eye-opening perspective on experiences that should resonate even for audiences halfway around the world". Neon. The stylists shared her pictures, saying she is now ready to . When an unruly family moves in next door, what at first seems like a balm for her solitude becomes a source of tension as they, too, want to practice beekeeping, while disregarding her advice. We have no option but to cope with it somehow," said Georgiev, who also edited the film. [59][60] In February 2020, the documentary won an award in the category of Best International Success at the 23rd Golden Ladybug of Popularity Awards in North Macedonia. "Everyone has to do the same work to survive. We noticed you have an ad blocker on. She's wickedly funny but sweet: When a market vendor hears how she devotes her life to caring for her mother Nazife, he gives her a fan decorated with a peacock's tail. 7 New Netflix Shows in October 2022 -- and the Best Reasons to Watch. [52] It also appeared on twenty-three critics' year-end top-ten lists, ranking first in three of them. All Rights Reserved. Its distributor Neon gave it a theatrical release in the United States, opening on 26 July 2019. Hatidze lives in a village that is close to her brother relatives. [22] David Ehlrich writing for IndieWire gave the film a B+ in his review, calling it "a bitter and mesmerically beautiful documentary that focuses on a single beekeeper as though our collective future hinges on the fragile relationship between her and the hives". So she was very happy to participate in this. ", Hatidze has travelled to Hollywood for the Oscars ceremony, and she has also been to several other film festivals, in places as far apart as New York, Switzerland, Sarajevo and Turkey. Although initially reluctant to participate in the documentary, Hatide agreed to get involved to send a message of sustainable living to the world. 2023 Copyright France 24 - All rights reserved. Informacje o filmie. Hatidze lives with her ailing mother in the mountains of Macedonia, making a living cultivating honey using ancient beekeeping traditions. [46] Writing for The Hollywood Reporter, Sheri Linden called it an "unforgettable vrit character study and an intimate look at an endangered tradition". As the nomadic family decides to move to another village, Hatide remains alone in Bekirlija. This leads to Sam's colonies attacking Hatide's during the resource-scarce winter. Today, about 78,000 ethnic Turks still live in North Macedonia, making up just under 4% of the country's population of 2.1 million. Honeyland revolves around her work as a wild bee keeper, as she ekes out a living in the rugged parts of the Ovce Pole plateau. [20] She elaborated that Sam's initial hesitation to sell more honey than he could produce comes from the conflict between his moral values and "the pressures of society". The directors say that wild beekeeping was something that only a few people in the region learned how to do. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and She and her dying, half-blind mother, Nazife, were the last residents of the abandoned mountain village. A woman walks alone through the untamed mountains and hills of Macedonia. Scott, the co-chief film critic of The New York Times, named it the No. The film depicts how Ms. Muratova and Hussein Sam, a seminomadic farmer tried to coexist in one of the poorest pockets of North Macedonia. When an unruly family moves in next door, what at first seems like a balm for her solitude becomes a source of tension as they, too, want to practice beekeeping, while disregarding her advice. But it's a message which is in danger of being lost in the modern world. Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters. Usually you dont interfere with your protagonists but as soon as we realized Honeyland would be very successful, we thought we had to do something.. A.O. [42] In a separate year-end review, Scott and Manohla Dargis of the same newspaper named Honeyland the best film of 2019, and called it "nothing less than a found epic". A conflict played out between human neighbours is also mirrored by the bees. But Hatidze was longing for her own family. But she wasnt shy, and eventually allowed Kotevska and Stefanov to film her. "I think she put a spell on us all, so that we would look after her daughter when she was gone," he said. Hatidze says her bees are uniquely resilient and can survive very high and very low temperature, unlike many other species. [17][18], Starting in 2015, the documentary was filmed over three years and the final version was condensed from more than 400 hours of footage. One day, the Sam family, nomadic cattle farmers who speak the same archaic Turkish dialect as Haditze and her mother, install their caravan right next to the women's house. But Kotevska says that there was never any need for negotiation; from the first time she encountered the filmmakers, Hatidze wanted to get her story out to the world. Her new neighbors dont share her philosophy of taking only whats needed from the bees. Sign up for our Email Newsletters here. Hatide instructs him on collecting honey and provides him with several bees so Sam can start his own colony. In fact, the social worker felt he had made himself too available. Her life perks. Kotevska says there were many other disadvantages from the beginning of the shooting but most of them ended up working out well. Most of the houses were still in ruins, slowly sliding into the undergrowth. Georgiev puts much of the film's phenomenal success down to Hatidze's "wonderful heart". Self: Honeyland. But theres another dimension to Hatidzes story that, for me, elevates the film above a simple fable about human greed. Then there was a legal battle over an incident that predated the film, in which Ms. Muratova was attacked by Mr. Sams dogs. When an unruly family moves in next door, what at first seems like a balm for her solitude becomes a source of tension as they, too, want to practice beekeeping, while disregarding her advice. Honeyland has much to say about conserving nature, but its lessons are also about human life and relationships. In an interview, Hatide said she views her work as a means of restoring the ecosystem's balance. Most of the houses were still in ruins, slowly sliding into the undergrowth. The directors say the film profoundly changed their lives. crafted from more than 400 (!) Our fearless leader, Hatidze, climbs higher and higher until she stops at an unremarkable collection of rocks. We are now very trained to see the stories that are created visually.". [43] Bob Verini of Variety deemed it a "rare film that would be a strong contender in either [Academy Awards] category, in any year" due to its "strong geopolitical resonance and visual splendor". When the filmmakers first met her, she was singing, Kotevska recalled when I interviewed her and Stefanov last week. Today, reader support makes up about two-thirds of our budget, allows us to dig deep on stories that matter, and lets us keep our reporting free for everyone. While translators worked to interpret the Macedonian dialect of Turkish the subjects spoke, Stefanov and Kotevska stitched a visual narrative that made sense and once the translations were added, they were surprised at what they found. "We were doing it by instinct, and then as soon as we got the translations the plot was all there. She lives with her ailing mother in a shack in a deserted village, without electricity, void of every convenience. In a simpler world, Mr. Georgiev, Mr. Stefanov and his co-director, Tamara Kotevska, would be basking in their newfound success, and focusing on new projects. And by all accounts, she is quite happy, according to filmmakers Tamara Kotevska and Ljubomir Stefanov. Fejmi Daut, one of the documentary's cinematographers, said the lack of electricity in the village meant the production crew relied on daylight, candles, gaslight and a fireplace to achieve desired image quality. In one scene, one of the young sons is shown helping a cow give birth, while another boy attempts milking with his father nearby. She wanted to live in the nearby village so she could still tend to her bees and have a warm place to live during the winter. [7][8] Initially, Hatide maintains good relationships with the family and spends time playing with the children. Film Review: 'Honeyland' Macedonian docmakers Ljubomir Stefanov and Tamara Kotevska make a visually poetic debut with this stark, wistful portrait of a lone rural beekeeper. Stay on top of the latest breaking film and TV news! Kotevska says that the directors do not want to portray the Sam family as symbols of destruction, but merely as "the mirror to all of us who make bad decisions", based on the need to survive and provide. Hatidze spent her time caring for both her bees and her mother, and with no spouse or children of her own, took some of the neighbor kids under her wing. "Honeyland" is a remarkable documentary, made over the course of three years.It won three awards at the Sundance Film Festival and follows Hatidze as she goes about her life. The IDA Documentary Screening Series brings some of the years most acclaimed documentary films to the IDA community and members of industry guilds and organizations. [ 7 ] [ 8 ] initially, Hatide agreed to get involved to send a message sustainable... Stefanov to film her learned how to do say the film 's phenomenal down... She stops at an unremarkable collection of rocks Muratova, a great character and a movie. 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