Scott from The New York Times praised the directors for "render[ing] the thick complexity of experience with poignant clarity" and called the film "quiet, intimate and intense, but touched with a breath of epic grandeur. "To be able to communicate with bees you need to have a personal strength to approach them, patience to learn how to tame them, and this way of life requires not force but wisdom," says Kotevska. Some documentary crews maintain a professional distance even after filming stops. In a deserted Macedonian village, Hatidze, a 50-something woman, trudges up a hillside to check her bee colonies nestled in the rocks. (Her last name, Muratova, is seen in the end credits.) Hatidze Muratova's grandfather taught her to harvest honey using ancient beekeeping traditions. [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". Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters. Honeyland is the first film to compete for both the best documentary award and best international feature film. Malika is the protagonist . John Sloss Is More Hopeful About the Sundance Film Market Than You Might Think, The Oscar Race for Best Picture Has Three Frontrunners as Voting Closes Tuesday, How RRR and Glass Onion Are Trying to Hack the Best Picture Oscar Race, Whered the Color Go? We spent hours just thinking what to do with this material. The situation depicted in Honeyland is one in which the inept neighbours arriving with their cattle soon add beekeeping to their livelihood but do so in ways that put profits first and come to threaten Hatidze's bees. [13], Initially, the directors were planning to focus on the rotational farming practices of villagers inhabiting the area around Bregalnica. Beekeeper Hatidze Muratova leads the filmmakers to the very . 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. 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. [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. In the end we came up with the best possible solution and that's to edit on mute. Terms of Service apply. Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox. Her story is featured in "Honeyland," the first film ever to be nominated at the Oscars for both best documentary and best foreign language movie. , One of Europe's Last Wild Beekeepers Fights Environmental and Economic Hardships. The film was shot on a shoestring budget, but grossed a little over $1 million, and turned its makers into darlings of the documentary circuit. Honeyland has much to say about conserving nature, but its lessons are also about human life and relationships. She is one of the last keepers of wild bees in Europe. Hatidze lives with her ailing mother in the mountains of Macedonia, making a living cultivating honey using ancient beekeeping traditions. The documentary's success is even more remarkable because it started almost accidentally. 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. [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". [23][24] According to Kotevska and Stefanov, during filming they mainly relied on visual observations of their subjects, whose language they did not understand. Will They Ever Leave? The documentary also portrays Hatide's relationships with her bedridden mother and her neighbors. She has been working with the bees all her life and everything she has learned, she learned from them.". "Half for me and half for you" is Hatidze's mantra, which she repeats as she tends to the bees on the mountain. The Oscar race is in full swing, and all eyes are on the big contenders: "Joker"! Both members of North Macedonias Turkish minority, Ms. Muratova, 56, and Mr. Sam, 70, have similar roots in rural poverty, but markedly different approaches to life. Honeyland. In the film, relations between Ms. Muratova and Mr. Sam were bad; Mr. Sam ignored Ms. Muratovas advice about how to start his own bee colony, leading his bees to attack hers and ruining Ms. Muratovas entire livelihood. Honeyland contains elements of several documentary styles, including fly on the wall, direct cinema, and cinma vrit. What happened in the Ukraine helicopter crash? A.O. [17][21] The filming technique has elements of direct cinema and cinma vrit. 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. Honeyland is a film set in a remote land, where the people live in ways unfamiliar in the West. And as humans, how could they ever not? . [14] Kotevska and Stefanov stated they tried to reflect the traditions of the region, according to which the last daughter has to take care of her parents until they die, prohibiting the daughter from marrying and establishing her own family. Hatidze Muratova, a 50-something woman, is, along with her ill mother Nazife, the last true resident of their rural village. Hatidze lives in a village that is close to her brother relatives. Hatidze lives with her ailing mother in the mountains of Macedonia, making a living cultivating honey using ancient beekeeping traditions. In a hint to the scene in the movie where she is purchasing hair dye, Hatidze had a new hairstyle done at the Iv studio in Skopje. The first reaction to her was probably a shock. This is exemplified when she chants "half for me, half for you" to her bees when collecting honey. Culture 06.02.2020 / 14:39. [32] The documentary's producer Atanas Georgiev said the production team was "very eager" to send the message of sustainability to the citizens and the government of North Macedonia, and to prompt action to improve the country's air quality and reduce pollution.[33]. Her life perks. Influencers: Profiles of a Partnership 2022, How to Pitch Stories and Articles to IndieWire, Sundance 2023: 17 Films That Could Sell Big Among a Diverse Lineup, Sundance 2023: Slashed Streaming Budgets and Theatrical Woes Won't Dampen Sales, 7 New Netflix Shows in October 2022 -- and the Best Reasons to Watch. Kotevska and Stefanov say that, like beekeeping, all the other jobs in this harsh environment have been done equally by men and women. Nevertheless she still spends the bee season in her old village. [41] A.O. Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights. "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. "And through that, even though her life is very harsh, Hatidze doesn't feel lonely.". Hatide instructs him on collecting honey and provides him with several bees so Sam can start his own colony. In fact it was the other way round. The . 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. "Sarah Jessica Parker was very excited to meet her after seeing the film," "Honeyland" producer Atanas Georgiev told AFP. [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". She has become a star. Hatidze shares honey with one of the Sam boys, Hatidze with members of the Sam family, including Hussein (right), Honeyland directors Tamara Kotevska and Ljubo Stefanov at an Oscar week event, North Macedonia mountains where Hatidze lives, Pictures can speak more loudly than words, Neon lights cannot match North Macedonia stars, Jeremy Renner TV show poster edited after accident, 15 minutes to defend yourself against the death penalty, Maximum two drinks a week, Canada guidance advises, Keep cake away from office, says food adviser, US porn star declared unfit for sex crimes trial, Iran man who beheaded wife jailed for eight years, Polar bear kills woman and boy in Alaska village, World's oldest person, Sister Andr, dies aged 118. 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. In fact, the social worker felt he had made himself too available. 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. Directors It was amazing," he said. We noticed you have an ad blocker on. But the life that extends beyond the movie itself is still felt within it, still gestured toward and honored, by the close personal . Kotevska and Stefanov's camera captures the duo's nighttime bickering with remarkable intimacy, as. Shot over three years, this elegant film . Georgiev puts much of the film's phenomenal success down to Hatidze's "wonderful heart". [54] She also criticized the alleged romanticization and exploitation of the austere conditions of Hatides circumstance for the political message on sustainability, defining it a "morality tale about environmentalism and sustainability that borders on preaching.". But Kotevska's main impression of Los Angeles is: "From the tall buildings, I cannot see the stars.". 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. However, Hussein, the father of the family, wants to harvest honey on a larger scale and for more profit. At the time of filming, Ms. Muratova lived year-round in Bekirlija, while Mr. Sams chaotic family usually only visited during the summer, disrupting Ms. Muratovas quiet existence. Honeyland introduces us to Hatidze Muratova, a woman in her 50s who harvests honey from her own beehives in the mountains of Macedonia. While working on a short video commissioned by a nature conservancy project, the filmmakers met Hatidze Muratova, a middle-aged woman who ekes out a hardscrabble and solitary existence harvesting honey with ancient, sustainable methods across the craggy mountainous landscape of the former Yugoslav republic while caring for her half-blind and bedridden mother in a modest home without . We began Honeyland in the framework of a nature conservation project. [40] At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream publications, the film received an average score of 86 based on 26 reviews, indicating "universal acclaim". Sign up for our Email Newsletters here. [17] Stefanov said, "The point is to take as much as you need, not to take everything, and leave [something] for tomorrow and those who are providing for you". The arrival of a nomadic familytrailer, shabby cattle, kittens, and a litter of children in towshatters Hatidzes serene world, and that tension sets the dramatic stakes of the film. In one scene of the film, Hatidze asks her mother why she turned down offers of marriage that were brought for Hatidze. Mr. Georgiev and Ms. Muratova visiting her new house in Dorfulija, which is still under construction. Hatidze approaches a beehive on a cliff 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. And this is her wish.. The documentary Honeyland premiered at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival, where it was the most awarded film, winning the Grand Jury Prize, Special Jury Award for Impact for Change, and the Special Jury Award for Cinematography in the World Cinema Documentary competition.