HONEYLAND

HONEYLAND, 2019
North Macedonia | DCP, Color, 87’ | Turkish, Macedonian
Director: Tamara Kotevska, Ljubo Stefanov
Cast: Hatice Muratova, Nazife Muratova, Hussein Sam

Hatice Muratova is a beekeper woman who lives with her old mother in a deserted mountain village with no electricity. Hatice sells half of the honey produced by the bees and leaves the remaining half to the bees to ensure sustainability. However, the order Hatice keeps begins to falter after another family arrives and settles into the village. This noisy family is miles away from respecting the rythym of nature and Hatice’s ongoing living arrangements, and the contradiction posed between Hatice’s approach to nature and life and that of this family becomes a micro-scale manifestation of the capitalist order that does not abstain from destroying nature for material gain. Filmed over three years, Honeyland attracted attention with its cinematography, and returned with praise and several awards from festivals around the world after it premiered at the Sundance Film Festival.