By Ema Poposka

All movie aficionados are eagerly expecting February 9 (early morning of February 10 here in Hong Kong, really, and since there is no school, it is easier to watch it) for the 92nd Academy Awards that will honour the best movies of 2019. 

There are some very interesting and deserving movies nominated in the Best Picture category. Probably influenced by our English class focus on the Holocaust, my favourite this year is Jojo Rabbit. I also root for Little Women, a new film adaptation of the novel by Luisa May Alcot with very strong female actors and a female director. The buzz in Hong Kong is about Parasite from South Korea directed by Bong Joon-ho, also nominated for Best Director.

However, my main attention will be focused on two other categories. This is because a movie filmed in my native North Macedonia will be competing for the golden statue. The movie is already unique because it is the first one in the Academy’s history to be nominated in both Best International Feature Film and Best Documentary Feature categories.

I watched the movie’s Asian Premiere at the Hong Kong International Film Festival taking place in Tai Kwun JC Cube in March 2019, when I had a chance to meet and talk to the directors Tamara Kotevska and Ljubomir Stefanov. Honestly, when I went to watch the movie I expected to learn more about beekeeping, the lives of bees and how honey is produced. However, I soon understood that the movie was about so much more than just beekeeping. 

Honeyland is a documentary that follows the life of a woman from the very remote village of Bekirlija, in the center of North Macedonia, who makes her humble living by farming honey from wild bees. Different than many documentaries, what makes this movie special is that it is not narrated by an all-knowing expert, rather the camera follows Hatidze Muratova in her daily activities and interactions with the nature and other people. She is the main character in the movie.

[Spoiler Alert!!!] 

Hatidze is a strong and independent woman. She stayed in the deserted village to take care of her old, half blind, bedridden mother. She lives in a small crumbling house without any of the commodities of modern life. Her life is at points idyllically rural, and at other points painfully difficult and sad. Her only source of income is selling the wild honey she takes from the bees. She earns just enough to survive, with just a bit to spare on personal indulgence like hair dye. She sings wild bees into her makeshift hives, and then takes half the honey from the hive, but leaves the other half for the bees to survive – a tradition she learned from her ancestors. Hatidze and the bees live in perfect symbiosis, a symbol of the possibility for humanity to live of natural resources without destroying nature.

Everything changes with the arrival of the Sam family, the parents and their seven children, with one more on the way by the end of the movie, who carry all their possessions in a trailer. Although mainly cattle breeders, after meeting Hatidze they become interested in beekeeping. However, the pressure to provide for his growing family makes Hussein greedy and interested only in how much money he could earn, not about the bees. This disrupts the close relationship with nature Hatidze has built over the years. Some of Hussein’s kids, especially one of his older sons, gets close to Hatidze and she is able to pass her way of life to him. Still, Hussein’s greed gets him in conflict with his own son, and kills all of Hatidze’s bees. 

The family eventually leaves after their whole herd gets sick and dies, leaving Hatidze in peace but at the same time leaving her completely alone this time. 

The directors captured truthfully every moment of the life in the mountains. “Every scene is real,” Tamara told me, “Even the one when the little girl almost drowns, which was really scary. Luckily, her brother was quick to save her.” The audience is able to directly relate to Hatidze and experience her loneliness while she talks to the bees and her dog, her sadness when her mother dies, her desperation and anger when her noisy neighbours disturb her quiet way of life. 

Some of the best parts of the movie are the wide landscape shots of steep mountains and barren valleys. The nature is so stunning in the movie – wild and beautiful at the same time. 

“I loved spending time with Hussein’s daughter, Gamze, although youngest she was very serious and thoughtful,” Tamara told me. “One day I would love to make a film about her.”