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HONEYLAND

Year 2019
Runtime 87 mins
Language Turkish
Subtitles English Subtitles
Alberta Premiere
This triple Sundance award-winner follows Europe's last female bee-hunter as her peaceful existence is disrupted by some unruly new neighbours.

Living a simple existence in the middle of the breathtaking Balkan mountainside, Haditze Muratova lives in peace with nature, nurturing her beloved honeybees. She is the last of the Macedonian wild beekeepers, using centuries old methods to maintain balance with her hives. While taking care of her ailing mother, she makes the four hour trek to market to sell her honey. The peaceful routine of her life is disrupted when new neighbours appear with their herd of cattle and seven children. Not wanting to interfere with their chaotic presence she offers only a single piece of sage advance: take half the honey for yourself, leave half for the bees.

Recorded over the course of three years, the filmmakers quietly observe from a distance allowing nature to take its course and leave everyone irrevocably changed in the process. The result is one of the year’s most critically acclaimed and cinematically stunning documentaries which won a Sundance Special Jury Prize and Grand Jury Prize for World Cinema Documentary.

Countries

Macedonia
Festivals
Sundance Film Festival, Hong Kong International Film Festival, Hot Docs International Documentary Festival, San Francisco International Film Festival, Seattle International Film Festival, Sheffield Doc/Fest
Director
Ljubo Stefanov, Tamara Kotevska
Producer
Atanas Georgiev, Ljubo Stefanov
Cinematographer
Fejmi Daut, Samir Ljuma
Editor
Atanas Georgiev
Music
Foltin
Cast
Hatidze Muratova, Nazife Muratova, Hussein Sam, Ljutvie Sam