+ Best Hero of the Year: Hatidze + Best Nature Documentary of the Year
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| The main character of Tamara Kotevska and Ljubomir Stefanov's Honeyland works with the bees in a striking light on this captivating poster for the film |
Hatidze is a bee hunter in the rough, mountainous Macedonian countryside, caring for her old mother and working with a respectful 'take half, leave half' philosophy, as a nomadic family becomes her new neighbors and disrupts the precarious natural balance.
Honeyland is an observed life documentary by debuting Tamara Kotevska (Free Hugs (2015, short)) and Ljubomir Stefanov.
Hatidze is a remarkable and strong person to follow: Her teeth and nose are a mess; she is past her prime as a marriage item, and she knows it. Still there is something beautiful about her, which no doubt stems from her exuding spirit and intelligent humanity. SPOILER Her caring for her invalid mother is touching and funny, but the story sees her lose the only family she has left, just as the new neighbors' exploitative efforts at bee-farming breaks her own little honey factory. But in the face of death, wintry cold, loneliness and financial ruin, Hatidze perseveres, keeps moving, engages with nature and thinks ahead to the coming spring.
Before this end, the neighboring family's interaction, two workhorse-like adults and their big litter of kids, are also a sight to behold; shouting, screaming, running, falling, fighting and doing what they can to keep the skins on their noses, it is hard to blame them much for the consequences of their failed farming attempts and rummaging Hatidze's surroundings; and the film doesn't vilify them. But it shows how different attitudes to making use of nature has different consequences, whether the involved parts are big or small, rich or, as in this case, all poor. - We share the same land, and consequences don't respect our borders.
Paradoxically, big, expensive nature documentaries free of people, - and usually with faster editing, - are often more readily relatable for modern city audiences as myself than a sojourn with people such as the ones we meet in Honeyland, simply because their everyday lives are so different from those of us watching them in cinemas, (a cultural luxury which they have likely never tried.)
It is therefore a demanding but captivating trip to a kind of life most will not have known of prior to Honeyland.
Related post:
Tamara Kotevska, Ljubomir Stefanov: 2019 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]
2019 in films - according to Film Excess
Cost: Unknown
Box office: 660k $ and counting
= Uncertain
[Honeyland premiered 28 January (Sundance Film Festival, Utah) and runs 87 minutes. The project was started in 2016. Shooting took place in North Macedonia, including Skopje. The filmmakers have bought Hatidze a 10k € house with electricity, an oven and a refrigerator, nearer the city, as well as clothes for the nomadic family's children; and they have launched a campaign for the sale of local honey. The film opened #40 to a 31k $ first weekend in 2 theaters in North America, where it is right now peaking at #36, and has peaked previously theater-wise on 56 screens, grossing 650k $ there to date. It won 3 prizes at Sundance, - and is likely to become a Best Documentary Oscar contender. The film has screened at numerous festivals and is set to continue opening in new markets into 2020. Kotevska has since made two shorts; House on a Rocky Road (2019) and Paw Law (2019), and is announced to helm a drama entitled Man vs. Flock. Stefanov does not have an announced next project yet. Honeyland is certified fresh at 99 % with an 8.35/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]
What do you think of Honeyland?
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