From Honeyland (all images courtesy Neon)

The documentary Honeyland premiered at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival, where it was the most awarded film, winning the Grand Jury Prize, Special Jury Award for Impact for Change, and the Special Jury Award for Cinematography in the World Cinema Documentary competition. Since then, directors Ljubomir Stefanov and Tamara Kotevska have taken the film around the world, from Europe to India to Siberia to the South Pacific. Theyve also flown their lead subject, Macedonian beekeeper Hatidze Muratova, to screenings, including one in New York City where she sang to a delighted audience. Originally commissioned by an environmental group, the film evolved into something entirely different when the directors discovered Muratova, who lived in a rural village that had been essentially abandoned by the government, lacking electricity or running water. They followed Muratova for three years, working two or three days at a time until their camera batteries ran out.

Honeyland is now nominated for two Academy Awards, Best Documentary Feature and Best International Feature (formerly Best Foreign Language Film). Documentaries have been nominated for Best International Feature only a handful of times before, and this is the first time ever that one film has been nominated for both these awards. We spoke with Stefanov, Kotevska, and Fejmi Daut, one of the films two cinematographers, the day after Honeyland was awarded Best Nonfiction Feature at the New York Film Critics Circle ceremony. This interview has been edited and condensed.

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Hyperallergic: Your documentary premiered at Sundance last January. What has the year been like for you?

Tamara Kotevska: How can you plan for this? Its like were in the army.

Ljubomir Stefanov: Our main income this year is from festival awards. We share this money equally. We chose festivals because, for example, we wanted to see India. Sometimes we could combine flights, so we could go from a festival in St. Petersburg to one in Irkutsk.

TK: The festival in New Caledonia, thats the time we were both crying.

LS: It was in a village north of the islands main city. The screenings were in a sort of communal space where they all cook and eat together.

TK: The festival organizer, who was half-French and half-indigenous, was telling us how there are 28 local languages for every tribe, and in none of them is there the word I. Doesnt exist. They always speak with us or we. We heard that and turned to each other and were both crying. I think this is how they understood our film so well, because its about sharing and equal responsibilities.

LS: Traveling the world was one thing. Its different in America. Since July, weve been here six or seven times, and its exhausting because youre going from one screening to another all the time. We had a screening in Woodstock for one person.

TK: They took us in the morning in a big black limo, made that one voter happy.

H: Do people often ask why you didnt help Hatidze?

LS: Yes, a lot of questions like that. Our answer is: You need to make a decision. Are you going to be a humanitarian organization or a filmmaker? We decided to be filmmakers, but also help them later. We changed Hatidzes life.

H: Did she feel betrayed when Hussein and his family moved into the village? She tried to help them and they took advantage of her, in fact threatened her livelihood.

TK: Just now they are settling their conflict. They finally signed a contract that they will not hurt each other anymore.

LS: It was a contract of mutual respect. We helped them prepare it.

TK: If Hatidze and her neighboring family let you into their way of life, that means both are okay with the way they live. They dont feel bad about their lives. Whats fascinating is that you cant even explain to Hussein that what hes doing might be wrong. He will just laugh at you.

LS: The way the other family accepts life is very different from how people think here. You may have heard that on the day of our premiere at Sundance, the mother gave birth to her eighth child. Now there are rumors that shes pregnant again. But theyre not bad guys, its just their way of life. The audience is perceiving them as bad guys.

TK: In the US, standards for human behavior are different. For other nationalities, what happened to Hatidze might be easier to understand, because theyve seen similar behavior all around them.

LS: Were from the Balkans, and in my opinion, your sense of community is even stronger than ours.

TK: In the Balkans, everything is just Do it for me.

H: Whats it like facing so many question-and-answer sessions?

TK: Its great, because you can see the mindsets of different kinds of people. But when journalists ask questions, its like they want to make you look different from who you are. So we might seem like arrogant people to them.

LS: Because we dont want to talk. We dont give interviews. Especially in our country.

Fejmi Daut: The stupidest questions we got were in our own country. We had a screening in our film school, and the students couldnt come up with one question. The dean was trying to get them to ask something.

TK: My two favorite questions from Macedonia, one was from a film student. He said, Okay, I understand why other people, other festivals in the world, like this film. But I just dont understand. There are so many movies about bees. Why didnt you, for example, do a film about ants?

And there was a very, very, very old lady at another screening, sitting in the back. She had a battle with an old guy in the front, they were testing each other. She got up first and said, Its so good that you found Hatidze. But did you ever think about making a film about the last traditional Kosovo flute player?

LS: Because we won three awards at Sundance, we had to keep giving speeches. In one of them, our editor made a political point about the weather, about pollution and climate change. And so back in Macedonia, the first journalist says, You are sending a message about air pollution.

TK: Thats why they think were arrogant.

H: They must have wanted to know about how you shot it.

FD: It was very difficult for us. In Hatizdes house it was very tight, maybe from this table to the wall [about eight feet]. We didnt have much space for the camera, no electricity, so everything was natural light. We thought about using artificial light, but it would destroy the ambiance. Thats why we used candles.

H: Did it seem like you were competing against the same people and films at festivals last year?

TK: More or less. I wouldnt say competing, because the documentary community is very supportive. Everyone we met, they are very down to earth people, very devoted and very supportive. Because they know what weve been through. We learned a lot.

LS: For example, how to position yourself in terms of distribution.

H: Do you feel comfortable with that aspect of the industry?

TK: Its too early to say. Well know with our next films whether were being exploited.

LS: Things are definitely different now. Im preparing a long-term project. The wider context of the work is still unknown to me, there are many possible approaches I can take. Im also working on an animated feature. Tamara is working on a fiction feature.

FD: This year Ill be working in Nigeria with one of the directors of One Child Nation.

TK: Still, I dont enjoy this life of festivals and screenings. We enjoy doing things for ourselves, preparing our own meals. When we got to go home for a month, it was the best time of the year.

LS: So things are more in our hands. Now its about finding the time.

Honeyland is available to stream on Hulu and other platforms.

Read the rest here:
In Honeyland, One of Europe's Last Wild Beekeepers Fights Environmental and Economic Hardships - Hyperallergic