[14], The documentary uses fly on the wall style;[22] it does not use any voice-overs and subjects filmed do not look directly at the camera, which gives it an "invisible" quality. Audience ratings certified by ACPM/OJD. "The love that she was keeping for a family of her own, that never came true, eventually went to the bees," says Kotevska. But we decided to break that rule, said Atanas Georgiev, the films producer. [15] The film was going to focus on Hatide's relationship with her mother and the directors had no conflict planned until the nomad family arrived sometime later. This gave us the power of the visual story that we made. As the nomadic family decides to move to another village, Hatide remains alone in Bekirlija. So all the scenes with the dialogue, particularly, we didnt know whats going on there. "I think she put a spell on us all, so that we would look after her daughter when she was gone," he said. Back at her homestead, Hatidze tends to her handmade hives and her bedridden mother, occasionally heading to the capital to market her wares. 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 her," Georgiev revealed. Shot over three years, this elegant film . "Honeyland" introduces us to Hatidze Muratova, a great character and a natural-born movie star. The documentary also portrays Hatide's relationships with her bedridden mother and her neighbors. Hatidze Muratova, a Macedonian beekeeper who's at the heart of the film "Honeyland.". However, Hussein, the father of the family, wants to harvest honey on a larger scale and for more profit. Description. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/29/world/europe/honeyland-north-macedonia-bees.html. 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. Honeyland opens this way: near-wordlessly, attending to the rituals of Hatidze's day, her trips to the nearest city to sell her honey. Sense of injustice lingers after Seoul Halloween crush, Chess gets a risqu makeover. [58], Honeyland was the most awarded movie at the 2019 Sundance Movie Festival, winning awards in three categories, including the Grand Jury Prize, the Special Jury Award for Impact for Change, and the Special Jury Award for Cinematography, all in the World Cinema Documentary Competition category. hours of footage, honeyland centers on hatidze, a woman in her mid-fifties (we learn she was born in 1964) who sustains herself and her elderly, infirm mother with her honey business, keeping rows and rows of bees on their small plot in a rural (and apparently otherwise abandoned) town a four-hour walk from the city It's us but for your ears. [34][35] The documentary includes numerous scenes of Hatide and her neighbors during the beekeeping process, including the handling of the apiaries where the bees are kept, the cutting of honeycombs and the collection of honey in jars. Neon. That is until their nomadic neighbours, Hussein and Ljutvie Sam, moved in with their unruly herd of children, cows and chickens. She hikes along a mountain ridge, prying a small, flat slab from the. Soon after, her mother dies. And by all accounts, she is quite happy, according to filmmakers Tamara Kotevska and Ljubomir Stefanov. Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox. The crew of Honeyland spent years filming the day-to-day lives of Hatidze, her mother and her neighbors, and distilled all of their practices and chance encounters into a film just short of an hour and a half. (and find out what happened to Hatidze). But she wasnt shy, and eventually allowed Kotevska and Stefanov to film her. Honeyland began as a government-funded environmental short exploring conservation, biodiversity . A conflict played out between human neighbours is also mirrored by the bees. The home she lives in was purchased for her by the documentary filmmakers after they won their first award at the Sarajevo film festival. A woman walks alone through the untamed mountains and hills of Macedonia. Yet Mr. Georgiev has been anything but absent. Hatidze is the protagonist of Honeyland, a 2019 Sundance Grand Jury Prize-winning documentary directed by the Macedonian duo of Tamara Kotevska and Ljubomir Stefanov. But it is also kind of a payback, Mr. Georgiev said. Honeyland introduces us to Hatidze Muratova, a woman in her 50s who harvests honey from her own beehives in the mountains of Macedonia. "The mother and daughter story is so beautiful and almost mythological, but with the honey, there is conflict, capitalism and consumerism. Related 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. They also planned to follow the natural change of the river's flow that takes place every ten years. However, after learning about Hatidze from their time spent in the local area, this plan soon developed into a three year stay documenting Hatdidze's unique way of life and her interaction with those . 99+ Photos Documentary Drama The last female bee-hunter in Europe must save the bees and return the natural balance in Honeyland, when a family of nomadic beekeepers invade her land and threaten her livelihood. In Hatidze's family, learning the skill skipped a generation - she learned it as a girl from her grandfather, rather than her parents. First we spent three and a half months, four months, just watching the material, the whole material. BELGRADE, Serbia After taking the lead role in Oscar-nominated documentary Honeyland, Hatice (Atidze) Muratova left behind her previous life of poverty. Her new neighbors dont share her philosophy of taking only whats needed from the bees. If Id had a son like you, she later tells one of the neighbor boys, things would be different.. That was largely thanks to Mr. Stefanov and his fellow filmmakers. Stay on top of the latest breaking film and TV news! Honeyland has much to say about conserving nature, but its lessons are also about human life and relationships. Hatidze especially feels the consequences. "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. 1 movie of 2019. 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. Production with obstacles. Get The Latest IndieWire Alerts And Newsletters Delivered Directly To Your Inbox. But under pressure to produce more from a local merchant, he breaks Hatidze's golden rule of leaving half for the bees, with disastrous consequences for everyone. Hatidze Muratova, the protagonist of "Honeyland. 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. And the complexities of this transition created a clash between the filmmakers professional duties as cleareyed observers and their subjects emotional expectations of them as humans and friends. But Hatidze was longing for her own family. It was very surprising because we didnt change what we put on the line. Interviews with leading film and TV creators about their process and craft. "This was the most valuable lesson for us as the authors of the future films. It really says something important about the world," he added. Now the filmmakers are struggling to disentangle themselves from their subjects. In one scene of the film, Hatidze asks her mother why she turned down offers of marriage that were brought for Hatidze. So we can probably say that the bees brought us to her.. "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. Nature filmmaking that focuses only on the environment can feel a little dry, while so-called human-interest storytelling can be cloying; Honeyland succeeds by combining the two. We spotted Hatidze in the very beginning and just started shooting her. (2019)/(),(),Honeyland. But they also contain poignant revelations of Hatidzes inner yearnings. happened upon a pivotal conflict that would alter Hatidze's life: the arrival of a nomadic family of nine who settled nearby with a few hundred cattle and a fierce determination to make a living. 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. " " Unofficial audio for Hatidze's song "Cekor Po Cekor" SUBSCRIBE FOR MORE . Serenading them with a secret chant, she gently manoeuvres the honeycomb without netting or gloves. [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. In an interview with Anadolu Agency, Muratova told her story that begins in a poor rural village in North Macedonia, leading in Oscar nominees. Hatidze gets very close to the bees, often using no protection. Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation. 9 of 216. The eureka moment was when "Hatidze talked about half the honey being for the bees and half for her. HONEYLAND. But the documentary doesnt teach us much about cultivating honey. To lessen the pressure on himself in refereeing the relationship, Mr. Georgiev created a foundation that works with the families independently of the crew. 2023 BBC. Hatidze lives with her ailing mother in the mountains of Macedonia, making a living cultivating honey using ancient beekeeping traditions. 7,8. The content you requested does not exist or is not available anymore. At its heart, this film is a character study, a meditation on the life of a woman who has carved out a precarious existence in an unforgiving place. One of the more unlikely films competing in this weekend's Oscars is a fascinating story about a wild beekeeper in the Balkans. 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. . This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Kotevska says that many people assume that she, as a woman, was the one who was closer to Hatidze, and Stefanov with the boys from the other family. [48] Rating it with four stars out of five, Helen O'Hara of Empire magazine, summed up the film as "[s]tunningly beautiful and quietly powerful, this is a portrait of a vanishing way of life and of a determined woman who's just trying to make her way in the world". They noticed beehives behind a rock on the mountain where they were filming. (Credit: Ljubo Stefanov/Trice Films) She will continue to find happiness again and again as long as she lives.". . We were very shocked to see this because it was obviously handmade, said Kotevska, and we started asking the locals around who they belonged to, who made them, and why. Hatide attended the event and performed two songs after receiving the award. What caught the directors' interest early on was observing Hatidze's life and her relationship with her mother. But the Honeyland directors, together with two cameramen, spent three years, on and off, visiting these families. 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. "Everyone has to do the same work to survive. That intense process ultimately shoved Ms. Muratova and Mr. Sam, vulnerable people who had never previously even been to a cinema, into the media glare. 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. he, out of greed, breaks Honeyland's basic rule (take half of the honey, but leave half to the bees); she, the last female beehunter in Europe, is left to save the bees and restore natural . Nominated for two Oscars, Honeyland charted the tensions between a hermitic beekeeper and her disorderly neighbors. 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. The story that unfolds in "Honeyland" is such a perfect parable of our times as we fret over the planet, that the New York Times declared it "the best movie of the year". The first reaction to her was probably a shock. For more information about the series, and a complete schedule, visit IDA. And I can feel that she feels that this is not her only home.. Directors Tamara Kotevska and Ljubomir Stefanov are expected to attend all screenings. Due to its location in a secluded mountain, the village has no access to electricity and running water. The woman is Hatidze Muratova, believed to be the last female . "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. A volunteer social worker now helps both families overcome a never-ending list of logistical and social challenges, including setting up bank accounts and enrolling them in social security. Hatidze Muratova, a 50-something woman, is, along with her ill mother Nazife, the last true resident of their rural village. The directors primarily focused on the visual aspects and wanted to portray humanity's balance with the ecosystem through Hatide, and consumerism and resource depletion through her neighbors. Here, she lives alone with her mother, putting in all her time and energy to make sure they live happily and peacefully. This is how we found our protagonist. 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. [22] Another theme covered in the movie is the motherdaughter relationship between Hatide and her bedridden mother, which cinematographer Ljuma and Kotevska described as resembling that between a queen bee and a worker bee. Directors Tamara Kotevska, Ljubomir Stefanov Starring Hatidze Muratova, Nazife Muratova, Hussein Sam Genres Drama, Documentary, Special Interest Subtitles None available The duo told the audience at the International Documentary Associations (IDA) annual screening series in Los Angeles they would sleep in tents in their protagonists backyard for three to four days at a time for three years, amassing hundreds of hours of footage they would then spend several months sorting through. She lives with her mother and is her care-taker, although . Ms. Muratova, pouring some honey for her guests at her home in Bekirlija. [49], David Sims of The Atlantic called Honeyland "a rare nature documentary that's deeply personal". "She finds happiness and companionship in every living creature around her. Even if Im in a film, she said, Im still going to take care of my bees.. [66], Other languages spoken in the film include, Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation, San Francisco International Film Festival, American Society of Cinematographers Awards, DallasFort Worth Film Critics Association, International Documentary Association Awards, Washington D.C. Area Film Critics Association, List of submissions to the 92nd Academy Awards for Best International Feature Film, List of Macedonian submissions for the Academy Award for Best International Feature Film, List of films with a 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, "How 'Honeyland' Documentary Found Its Beekeeping Protagonist in Rural Macedonia", "Oscars: North Macedonia Selects 'Honeyland' for Best International Feature Category", "Oscar-nominated doc 'Honeyland' teaches a golden rule, rooted in science", " : ", "Oscars: How 'Honeyland' and 'For Sama' Portray Battles on Different Fronts", " " " , , ", "Ljubomir Stefanov, Tamara Kotevska Directors of Honeyland", "Pria o makedonskoj pelarici u utrci za Oscara: Pogledajte kako je filmska ekipa reagirala na odline vijesti", "Tamara Kotevska and Ljubomir Stefanov on Honeyland", "Shortlisted Documentary 'Honeyland' Expresses A "Universal Message" With Macedonian Beekeeper Story", "In 'Honeyland,' a solitary beekeeper delivers a warning about life in and out of balance", "Honeyland review beekeeper's life with a sting in the tale", "Review: 'Honeyland' is a heartbreaking documentary about a vanishing way of life", "Honeyland: Life lessons from Europe's last wild beekeeper", "Macedonia is the most polluted country in the world, please clean the air", "A brief guide to the 2020 Best International Feature Oscar nominees", " " " "" "", "Honeyland to Be Released in Australia and New Zealand", "Film Crew Spent 3 Years in Remote Balkan Hamlet. 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