Hatidze lives with her ailing mother in the mountains of Macedonia, making a living cultivating honey using ancient beekeeping traditions. He elaborated, "a sensitivity to both petty human concerns and striking natural beauty is what makes Honeyland a particularly enthralling documentary. So all the scenes with the dialogue, particularly, we didnt know whats going on there. What happened to Hatidze after Honeyland's opening sequence led Stefanov and Kotevska to devote three more years to filming her story and another year editing the four hundred hours of footage into eighty-five minutes. This was the beginning of a "crazy adventure" of three years, filming through scorching summers and freezing winters. Because the crew couldn't understand the old Ottoman Turkish dialect she spoke to her mother, Georgiev did the first rough edit on mute. Even with this help, Mr. Georgiev is still often drawn into the disputes. One of the more unlikely films competing in this weekend's Oscars is a fascinating story about a wild beekeeper in the Balkans. [7][8] Initially, Hatide maintains good relationships with the family and spends time playing with the children. [21] Each of the directors focused on a different element of the narrative; Kotevska's main role was the portrayal of relationships while Stefanov captured the environmental aspects. A conflict played out between human neighbours is also mirrored by the bees. Ms.Kotevska withMs. Muratova in her new house. When we met Hatidze and consequently everyone else you see in the film, we made sure to let them know that we will be nothing more than silent observers of their lives. Given her exceptionally poor living conditions in the nearly deserted hamlet of Bekirlija, Hatidze would often say that her main wish, out of her newfound fame, is to move to a better house in the near-by village of Dorfulija which offers far better living standards. Its impossible! sighed Mr. Georgiev. Calm and gentle, Ms. Muratova has a deep and respectful relationship with nature, treating her bees almost as collaborators. "When we came to editing, we spent a week or more just being completely stuck. 2023 BBC. Honeyland received universal critical acclaim from film critics, who praised its attention to detail and applauded its conservationist message. [29], According to Stefanov, the directors' main focuses in Honeyland were climate change, biodiversity loss exemplified by the decline of the bee population,[30] and the use of natural resources. Her life perks. Directors Tamara Kotevska and Ljubomir Stefanov are expected to attend all screenings. Titles . Who was Ukrainian minister Denys Monastyrsky? "honeyland," directed by tamara kotevska and ljubomir stefanov, is set in macedonia and follows the life of the region's last nomadic beekeeper hatide muratova, much of the film tracks the. Their avarice, and the events that soon unfold, haveled many critics to praise the film as an allegory for the modern worlds impact on our most fragile ecosystems. Due to its location in a secluded mountain, the village has no access to electricity and running water. [10] The movie was originally intended as government-funded documentary short focusing on the Bregalnica river and the preservation of the surrounding region in Lozovo municipality, central North Macedonia. If you value what you get from Mother Jones, please join us with a tax-deductible donation today so we can keep on doing the type of journalism 2023 demands. Meanwhile, someone had pilfered Ms. Muratovas honey, and she blamed Mr. Sam. 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[47] Ed Potton of The Times, who gave the film four stars out of five, said "[a]lthough it starts as a meditation on the hardship and rhythms of rural life, [the film] becomes something more intimate". Honeyland. "The Sam family that comes later are the other group of bees who are attacking the previous group of bees, which is Hatidze and her family. 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 . Production with obstacles. Hatidze lives in a village that is close to her brother relatives. [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. Can you pitch in a few bucks to help fund Mother Jones' investigative journalism? Scott, the co-chief film critic of The New York Times, named it the No. And then she said that this is something she was thinking of a lot how to find a way to tell her story to the world. The home she lives in was purchased for her by the documentary filmmakers after they won their first award at the Sarajevo film festival. Hatidze Muratova, the protagonist of "Honeyland. Its an avalanche of issues, said Julijana Daskalov, the foundations program manager. But it is also kind of a payback, Mr. Georgiev said. [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. That scene where she's taking the honey, she's saying, "Half for me and half for you." That was . All pictures from Honeyland (directors: Tamara Kotevska and Ljubo Stefanov) are NEON copyright, unless otherwise stated, From World of Warcraft to conducting the Oscars, Ukrainian ministers killed in helicopter crash, Zelensky addresses world leaders after deadly helicopter crash, 15 minutes to defend yourself against death penalty. Honeyland is the story of Hatidze, a lone rural beekeeper in the spectacular, almost unpopulated Macedonian mountain countryside. "It's important who we were as people, our personalities, this was crucial. 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. Anyone can read what you share. Their conversations, which take place in the dark, cave-like interior of their home, are often quite funnythe daily bickering of two aging women. We have no option but to cope with it somehow," said Georgiev, who also edited the film. She is one of the last keepers of wild bees in Europe. Dan on January 31, 2020 at 11:01 am . [17][21] The filming technique has elements of direct cinema and cinma vrit. (2019)/(),(),Honeyland. Honeyland is the first documentary to receive a nomination in both categories in the history of the Oscars. When we first meet Hatidze, she is ascending the path from the rustic homestead she shares with her dying mother and her dog, Jackie, in search of wild bees in the surrounding hills. [16] Hatide and the nomad family were camera-shy at first but became used to the process as filming progressed. Hatidze Muratova in Honeyland (2019) Close. The film shows that to be true of the people living in the region too. But her quiet existence is fundamentally changed when the nomadic Sam family, consisting of parents with seven unruly children, a noisy vehicle and a large herd of cattle, moves into the village. Yet Mr. Georgiev has been anything but absent. The documentary also portrays Hatide's relationships with her bedridden mother and her neighbors. [19] Michael O'Sullivan from The Washington Post also found a prominent, cautionary message about the consequences of disrupting the universe's equilibrium. And I can feel that she feels that this is not her only home.. Until "Honeyland" -- the "non-fiction masterpiece" in which the village beekeeper appears -- won a record three awards at the Sundance film festival, Hatidze lived in a tiny mud and stone house without electricity and running water in the wilds of North Macedonia. Now it has become the first film ever to get Oscar nominations for both best documentary and best foreign language movie, Hatidze has become a full-blown celebrity who gets stopped in the street by Hollywood stars. Sucked into the dispute, the crew tried to stay neutral by providing legal assistance to both parties, and they mediated an agreement by which Ms. Muratova would withdraw her complaint in exchange for Mr. Sams promise to abide by a set of principles about his future behavior. A woman walks alone through the untamed mountains and hills of Macedonia. , One of Europe's Last Wild Beekeepers Fights Environmental and Economic Hardships. She hikes along a mountain ridge, prying a small, flat slab from the. [20] The production involved a crew of six: the two directors, two directors of photography, an editor, and a sound engineer. But Hatidze was longing for her own family. [61], On 13 January 2020, Honeyland received nominations in the categories for Best Documentary Feature and Best International Feature Film at the 92nd Academy Awards; it was the first documentary in the history of the Oscars to receive a nomination in the both categories. Despite his initial success, one of Sam's customers demands more honey than his bees can produce. Directors Tamara Kotevska Ljubomir Stefanov Writers Tamara Kotevska Ljubomir Stefanov Stars Hatidze Muratova Nazife Muratova Hussein Sam Gender shouldn't be the topic of discussion. The directors focused only on the visuals without making use of audio recordings or transcripts. This is how we found our protagonist. But as often happens with the best documentaries, the filmmakers got lucky, because the movie they thought they were making a slice of life about a beekeeper became something more, a story about character and . According to Kotevska, virtually none of the film's scenes are inauthentic the only part that had to be recreated was the Sams arrival in the village, which the filmmakers had missed their first year of filming. 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. And thats very pleasing in editing because it can become very boring seeing the same stuff again.. Complicating matters: They didnt speak Turkish, the preferred language of the films main subjects both Hatidze and her new neighbors who moved in a few months into the shoot and disrupted her way of life. If Id had a son like you, she later tells one of the neighbor boys, things would be different.. As observers, should they ever help their subjects? Directors Tamara Kotevska, Ljubomir Stefanov Starring Hatidze Muratova, Nazife Muratova, Hussein Sam Genres Drama, Documentary, Special Interest Subtitles None available She lives with her ailing mother in a shack in a deserted village, without electricity, void of every convenience. "Hatidze acts with the bees as if they were her family and she takes care of them as if they were her children," says Kotevska. [27], After the film, the filmmakers bought Hatide a house close to her brother's family, although she still spends bee season in her old village. Nell Minow: Directors Ljubo Stefanov and Tamara Kotevska show the same infinite patience and care in telling the story of their subject, a Macedonian beekeeper named Hatidze, that Hatidze shows in caring for her bees. The honey she sells at the market in the capital of North Macedonia, Skopje, is her sole source of income. She stated that the movie was too fictionalized to be regarded as a documentary and claimed it was "a bona fide Flahertian re-enacted documentary. Hatidze, star of the Oscar nominated Honeyland movie, gets a new house. Honeyland (Macedonian: , transliterated: Medena zemja) is a 2019 Macedonian documentary film that was directed by Tamara Kotevska and Ljubomir Stefanov. 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