That scene where she's taking the honey, she's saying, "Half for me and half for you." That was . Nominated for Oscars for both best documentary feature and best foreign film, it is a visual masterpiece, introducing its viewers to an incredible, particular life . Yet Mr. Georgiev has been anything but absent. She will continue to find happiness again and again as long as she lives.". They have since helped set Hatidze up in a new winter home close to her relatives in the "nearest village to civilisation". 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. Kotevska says there were many other disadvantages from the beginning of the shooting but most of them ended up working out well. 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. Sundance 2023: 17 Films That Could Sell Big Among a Diverse Lineup We're a nonprofit (so it's tax-deductible), and reader support makes up about two-thirds of our budget. Hatidze makes a living using ancient beekeeping traditions. All Rights Reserved. The documentary received numerous awards and nominations at film festivals, including three awards at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival and two nominations at the 92nd Academy Awards in the categories for Best International Feature Film and Best Documentary Feature . But the documentary doesnt teach us much about cultivating honey. Hatidze lives with her ailing mother in the mountains of Macedonia, making a living cultivating honey using ancient beekeeping traditions. Life was hard but peaceful in this forgotten corner of the Balkans. Hatidze Muratova, a 50-something woman, is, along with her ill mother Nazife, the last true resident of their rural village. This is exemplified when she chants "half for me, half for you" to her bees when collecting honey. Nevertheless she still spends the bee season in her old village. 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. 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. Malika is the protagonist . 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. The Oscar race is in full swing, and all eyes are on the big contenders: "Joker"! "[50] Sheena Scott from Forbes shared Sims's sentiments, writing that "it is the moments of intimacy that make this film so unique and beautiful". Calm and gentle, Ms. Muratova has a deep and respectful relationship with nature, treating her bees almost as collaborators. The documentary received numerous awards and nominations at film festivals, including three awards at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival and two nominations at the 92nd Academy Awards in the categories for Best International Feature Film and Best Documentary Feature. Hatidze Muratova,a beekeeper and the star of Honeyland, at her home in the remote mountain village of Bekirlija in North Macedonia. [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". And this is how we came to it. This leads to Sam's colonies attacking Hatide's during the resource-scarce winter. Honeyland (directed by Tamara Kotevska and Ljubomir Stefanov) is a documentary film that follows the life of a beekeeper, Hatidze Muratova, who lives with her elderly mother in an otherwise abandoned village in rural Macedonia. She says that beekeeping has made Hatidze such a remarkable person. Honeyland. Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox. 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. Dan on January 31, 2020 at 11:01 am . Their conversations, which take place in the dark, cave-like interior of their home, are often quite funnythe daily bickering of two aging women. IndieWire is a part of Penske Media Corporation. All Rights Reserved. One of the more unlikely films competing in this weekend's Oscars is a fascinating story about a wild beekeeper in the Balkans. The most awarded film at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival . [22] David Fear writing for Rolling Stone viewed it as a documentary that portrays "rural regionalism and lost art forms", also saying the directors ensured viewers are immersed in Hatide's way of living during the first half of the movie so they realize what is being lost during the latter half. But the Honeyland directors, together with two cameramen, spent three years, on and off, visiting these families. Georgiev puts much of the film's phenomenal success down to Hatidze's "wonderful heart". Some documentary crews maintain a professional distance even after filming stops. 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. Will They Ever Leave? Kotevska and Stefanov say that, like beekeeping, all the other jobs in this harsh environment have been done equally by men and women. 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. Mr. Sam has a more haphazard way with his cows, viewing them almost as antagonists. [20] The production involved a crew of six: the two directors, two directors of photography, an editor, and a sound engineer. Hatidze Muratova. Although initially reluctant to participate in the documentary, Hatide agreed to get involved to send a message of sustainable living to the world. The directors say that wild beekeeping was something that only a few people in the region learned how to do. The film was initially planned as a short film documenting the region surrounding the river Bregalnica but its area of focus changed when the directors met Hatide. "Everything we've heard from Hatidze refers to bees. [65] Following the movie's dual nomination, several other countries started submitting their documentaries for dual categories at the 2021 Oscar awards. Georgiev realised they had something way beyond a morality tale about capitalism on their hands. This was the beginning of a "crazy adventure" of three years, filming through scorching summers and freezing winters. [36] One mixed review came from Stephen Whitty writing for Screen Daily, who praised the painstaking filming and imagery but said its "commercial future seems limited" and that it "leaves plenty of questions and, occasionally, its audience behind". Read about our approach to external linking. 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. ", join us with a tax-deductible donation today. 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. WEB_1080P . Log in to Reply. 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. But she refused a request to open up her hives, hidden in the crags of a nearby mountain, for fear the heat of the noon sun would harm the honeycombs. And thats very pleasing in editing because it can become very boring seeing the same stuff again.. She lives by that simple principle. 2023 Copyright France 24 - All rights reserved. Honeyland has much to say about conserving nature, but its lessons are also about human life and relationships. Having lived 56 years quite happily without television, Hatidze wasn't all that aware of "Sex and the City", although she graciously told the star-struck actress's fortune "by reading the coffee grains in bottom of her cup.". Hatidze Muratova is a Macedonian beekeeper of Turkish ethnicity: Outside, she sings to the bees that she tends with an expert, traditional hand. Despite his initial success, one of Sam's customers demands more honey than his bees can produce. Titles . Hatidze generously imparts her methods to him but, pressured by money-grubbing marketeers, he disregards the half-for-them-half-for-us rule and wreaks havoc on the region's beekeeping . The eureka moment was when "Hatidze talked about half the honey being for the bees and half for her. Honeyland documents the life of Hatide Muratova, a Macedonian beekeeper of Turkish descent, who lives in the village of Bekirlija in the municipality of Lozovo. [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". [26], Honeyland was ranked as the third-best documentary and twelfth-best foreign film of 2019 in a survey of over 300 critics around the world conducted by IndieWire. Sundance 2023: Slashed Streaming Budgets and Theatrical Woes Won't Dampen Sales And even with her newfound fame, Ms. Muratova said she still remained true to her vocation. Serenading them with a secret chant, she gently manoeuvres the honeycomb without netting or gloves. [17][21] The filming technique has elements of direct cinema and cinma vrit. Hatidze Muratova in "Honeyland." (Neon) But "Honeyland" is not a fictional story about a good woman and an evil man; Hussein Sam's a desperate mannine mouths to feed is a massive . [62][34] It is also the second Macedonian film to earn an Oscar nomination after Before the Rain (1994). Honeyland was filmed over 100 separate days spread out over three years . 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. The story revolves around Hatidze, the last wild beekeeper, and her life philosophy on the exploitation of the natural resources. 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. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. But there was big pressure from the public in Macedonia" for her to go to the Oscars. "She is sharp, very intelligent and speaks four languages from different language groups -- Turkish, Macedonian, Albanian and Vlach (Aromanian)," Georgiev said. However, Hussein, the father of the family, wants to harvest honey on a larger scale and for more profit. 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 . It won three prizes at the prestigious Sundance Film Festival and was nominated for best documentary and best international feature at this years Academy Awards. Most of the houses were still in ruins, slowly sliding into the undergrowth. Meanwhile, someone had pilfered Ms. Muratovas honey, and she blamed Mr. Sam. 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. With eight hungry mouths to feed, Hussein tries his hand at honey. Production with obstacles. Honeyland. Now this place and these people are different, said a wistful Ljubomir Stefanov, one of the films two co-directors, sitting in Ms. Muratovas garden. She takes only half of the honey, leaving the rest for the bees. Its distributor Neon gave it a theatrical release in the United States, opening on 26 July 2019. 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. Sam disregards Hatide's advice to always leave half of the honey for his bees and proceeds to sell the entire stock of honey. But it's a message which is in danger of being lost in the modern world. And bees do fill the filmflitting in and out of the frame, stinging hapless neighbors, and alchemizing the harsh landscape into molten gold. Read about our approach to external linking. Hatide scolds Sam for ignoring her advice and her bee colony collapses. In fact, the social worker felt he had made himself too available. The directors focused only on the visuals without making use of audio recordings or transcripts. [41] A.O. honeyland.2019.1080p.web.h264-w4f.mkv. Hatide attended the event and performed two songs after receiving the award. She has become a star. What caught the directors' interest early on was observing Hatidze's life and her relationship with her mother. Every time she has a new person coming to her door, she starts singing to them to break the ice. She also sings to the bees, a technique that appears to quell their stings. So we can probably say that the bees brought us to her.. Nazife says she did not turn them down, but Hatidze's late father did. "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. 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. The documentary also portrays Hatide's relationships with her bedridden mother and her neighbors. Hatidze Muratova in Honeyland (2019) People Hatidze Muratova. But Ms. Muratovas cramped, dark living room, site of the movies most moving scene, no longer felt lived in. 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 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. In one scene of the film, Hatidze asks her mother why she turned down offers of marriage that were brought for Hatidze. (Credit: Ljubo Stefanov/Trice Films) [9], Honeyland is Tamara Kotevska's and Ljubomir Stefanov's second collaboration on a documentary movie after Lake of Apples (2017). The shoot lasted three years, with co-directors Tamara Kotevska and Ljubomir Stefanov camping in the village with their cameramen until their batteries would run out -- since there was no electricity for miles. [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. Hatidze Muratova, the star of the two Oscar nominated documentary movie Honeyland, is preparing for her trip to Hollywood. Honeyland introduces us to Hatidze Muratova, a woman in her 50s who harvests honey from her own beehives in the mountains of Macedonia. During postproduction, the two became locked in a dispute about a communal well in Bekirlija. [19] Due to the remoteness of Bekirlija, the production team stayed there for three-to-four consecutive days before going to nearby towns for supplies and to recharge their filming equipment. Mr. Georgiev and Ms. Muratova visiting her new house in Dorfulija, which is still under construction. It's a poem including history"[19] and listed the film as best pick for 2019. ", 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. [64] Jake Coyle writing for the Associated Press deemed the documentary a "quietly revolutionary Oscar nominee" and said it "speaks to the increasingly boundless nature of [the] documentary [genre]". Moments before leaving, Mr. Sam pulled him aside to ask why he hadnt been in contact so much during the coronavirus lockdown. Our fearless leader, Hatidze, climbs higher and higher until she stops at an unremarkable collection of rocks. [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. 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. Hatidze lives with her ailing mother in the mountains of Macedonia, making a living . Can you pitch in a few bucks to help fund Mother Jones' investigative journalism? This is how we found our protagonist. "Everyone has to do the same work to survive. We really enjoyed making this comparison during the shooting.". Listen on Apple Podcasts. Hatide lives with her 85-year-old, partly blind and bedridden mother Nazife, who is completely dependent on her daughter. 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. The first reaction to her was probably a shock. "We were doing it by instinct, and then as soon as we got the translations the plot was all there. She removes the covering and, with her bare hands, pulls honey-covered frames out of the hive while chanting to the bees and using smoke to keep . It's us but for your ears. Gender shouldn't be the topic of discussion. We spent hours just thinking what to do with this material. [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. 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. Mother and her neighbors nature, treating her bees almost as antagonists the story revolves around Hatidze the... Set Hatidze up in a few bucks to help fund mother Jones Daily have... An unremarkable collection of rocks she stops at an unremarkable collection of rocks disadvantages from the public Macedonia... 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