Honeyland () is a 2019 Macedonian documentary film that was directed by Tamara Kotevska and Ljubomir Stefanov. It portrays the life of Hatidže Muratova, a lonely beekeeper of wild bees who lives in the remote mountain village of Bekirlija and follows her lifestyle before and after neighbors move in nearby. 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 Hatidže. Honeyland received its world premiere at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival on 28 January and it has grossed $1,315,037.
Filming of Honeyland lasted three years, and 400 hours of footage were filmed. Several environmental topics are explored, such as climate change, biodiversity loss, and exploitation of natural resources. The directors primarily focused on the visual aspects and wanted to portray humanity's balance with the ecosystem through Hatidže, and consumerism and resource depletion through her neighbors. The documentary also portrays Hatidže's relationships with her bedridden mother and her neighbors. Honeyland contains elements of several documentary styles, including fly on the wall, direct cinema, and cinéma vérité.
Honeyland received universal critical acclaim from film critics, who praised its attention to detail and applauded its conservationist message. 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. Honeyland is the first documentary to receive a nomination in both categories in the history of the Oscars.
Plot Honeyland documents the life of Hatidže Muratova, a Macedonian beekeeper of Turkish descent, who lives in the village of Bekirlija in the municipality of Lozovo. She is one of the last keepers of wild bees in Europe. Due to its location in a secluded mountain, the village has no access to electricity and running water. Hatidže lives with her 85-year-old, partly blind and bedridden mother Nazife, who is completely dependent on her daughter. Hatidže earns a living by selling honey in the country's capital Skopje, which is four hours away from the village.
The atmosphere in the village changes when the nomadic rancher Hussein Sam arrives with his wife Ljutvie, their seven children, and their imported domestic animals. Initially, Hatidže maintains good relationships with the family and spends time playing with the children. In need of money, and inspired by Hatidže's way of earning money, Sam takes an interest in wild beekeeping himself. Hatidže instructs him on collecting honey and provides him with several bees so Sam can start his own colony. Despite his initial success, one of Sam's customers demands more honey than his bees can produce. Sam disregards Hatidže's advice to always leave half of the honey for his bees and proceeds to sell the entire stock of honey. This leads to Sam's colonies attacking Hatidže's during the resource-scarce winter. Hatidže scolds Sam for ignoring her advice and her bee colony collapses. Soon after, her mother dies. As the nomadic family decides to move to another village, Hatidže remains alone in Bekirlija.
Conception and development
Honeyland is Tamara Kotevska's and Ljubomir Stefanov's second collaboration on a documentary movie after Lake of Apples (2017). The movie was originally intended as a government-funded documentary short focusing on the Bregalnica river and the preservation of the surrounding region in Lozovo municipality, central North Macedonia. The project was also part of the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation's program for preservation of North Macedonia's natural resources. Finance came from a $25,000 grant awarded by San Francisco International Film Festival's documentary fund and three million Macedonian denars awarded by North Macedonia Film Agency.
Initially, the directors were planning to focus on the rotational farming practices of villagers inhabiting the area around Bregalnica. They also planned to follow the natural change of the river's flow that takes place every ten years. Upon arriving at the location, the film crew was introduced to Hatidže. Although initially reluctant to participate in the documentary, Hatidže agreed to get involved to send a message of sustainable living to the world. The film was going to focus on Hatidže's relationship with her mother and the directors had no conflict planned until the nomad family arrived sometime later. Hatidže and the nomad family were camera-shy at first but became used to the process as filming progressed. 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 during their first year of filming.
Filming and production
Starting in 2015, the documentary was filmed over three years and the final version was condensed from more than 400 hours of footage. 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. They slept in tents and hammocks in front of Hatidže's house. The production involved a crew of six: the two directors, two directors of photography, an editor, and a sound engineer. They spent the better course of three years visiting the families of the film. Fejmi Daut, one of the documentary's cinematographers, said the lack of electricity in the village meant the production crew relied on daylight, candles, gaslight and a fireplace to achieve desired image quality. 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.
The documentary uses fly on the wall style; it does not use any voice-overs and subjects filmed do not look directly at the camera, which gives it an "invisible" quality. According to Kotevska and Stefanov, during filming they mainly relied on visual observations of their subjects, whose language they did not understand. This approach was followed during the post-production stages and the first six months of the rough cut, which together lasted approximately 12 months. The directors focused only on the visuals without making use of audio recordings or transcripts. According to Kotevska, they wanted to make sure the movie's narrative is completely understandable even if it is followed visually. The filming technique has elements of direct cinema and cinéma vérité. The camerawork, which is steady during the first half of the movie, later becomes less steady with the arrival of the nomadic neighbors.
The film's score was composed and performed by the Macedonian band Foltin under the musical supervision of Rana Eid from the production company DB Studios in Beirut, Lebanon. The directors decided to collaborate with Foltin on the movie's score because they deemed Foltin original and capable of creating music specifically tailored for the documentary.
After the film, the filmmakers bought Hatidže a house close to her brother's family, although she still spends bee season in her old village. They also set up a donation page supporting Sams' children on the film's website.
Themes According to Stefanov, the directors' main focuses in Honeyland were climate change, biodiversity loss exemplified by the decline of the bee population, and the use of natural resources. 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". Kotevska said the most suitable description of the documentary's main theme is modern consumerism. She described Hatidže's case as a portrayal of "how consumerism destroys ... natural resources completely". She elaborated that Sam's initial hesitation to sell more honey than he could produce comes from the conflict between his moral values and "the pressures of society". Josh Kupecki from the Austin Chronicle said Honeyland successfully depicts the way "capitalism functions even in the most rural areas". Sheena Scott, writing for Forbes, said Sam's actions were motivated by profit "to the detriment of a more suitable sustainable way of living".
Set in the context of global warming and the rise of contemporary environmental awareness, numerous critics emphasized the message of sustainability. A.O. Scott from The New York Times viewed Hatidže as a "heroic figure" who sends a message to her "wasteful, wanton neighbors". Michael O'Sullivan from The Washington Post also found a prominent, cautionary message about the consequences of disrupting the universe's equilibrium. 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 Hatidže's way of living during the first half of the movie so they realize what is being lost during the latter half. 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.
In an interview, Hatidže said she views her work as a means of restoring the ecosystem's balance. This is exemplified when she chants "half for me, half for you" to her bees when collecting honey. This principle is based on the customs and traditions of her grandfather, who taught her bees need to use their own honey to obtain enough energy to fly and mate. The documentary includes numerous scenes of Hatidže 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.
Critics have viewed it as a film that also explores anthropological topics. Another theme covered in the movie is the mother–daughter relationship between Hatidže and her bedridden mother, which cinematographer Ljuma and Kotevska described as resembling that between a queen bee and a worker bee. The finished film includes six of the twenty-five scenes portraying the relationship between the two. 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.
Release The world premiere of Honeyland took place at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival on 28 January 2019. Its distributor Neon gave it a theatrical release in the United States, opening on 26 July 2019. In North Macedonia, the film had its premiere at the MakeDox Festival in Kuršumli An on 28 August 2019, which was attended by the film crew and Hatidže, and included a concert by Foltin. In the United Kingdom, Honeyland was released by Dogwoof on 13 September 2019, which was followed by a wider release in most European countries the same month. In Australia and New Zealand, Honeyland was released by the production company Umbrella Films on 5 March 2020. As of July 2021, Honeyland has grossed $815,082 in the US and Canada, and $499,955 in other territories, making a worldwide gross of $1,315,037.
Reception Critical response