Honeyland(2019)

Storyline

• One of the last female wild beekeepers in Europe must save the bees and return the natural balance in Honeyland, when a family of nomadic beekeepers invade her land and threaten her livelihood. This film which is filmed in Macedonia is an exploration of an observational Indigenous visual narrative that deeply impacts our behavior towards natural resources and the human condition. — Stef Fifty-something ethnic Turk Hatidze Muratova , never married, is the sole caregiver to her mostly blind and bedridden eighty-five year old mother Nazife Muratova , they living in the small, remote and barren longtime family shack with no electricity or indoor plumbing in rural and rugged North Macedonia. How Hatidze has largely survived over the course of her life is as a honey beekeeper, she cultivating her own hive from wild stocks, that cultivation along traditional and sustainable methods. Needing to travel the long distance by bus the couple of times a year, she sells her honey to public market vendors in Skopje - often at a premium due to the quality of the product largely for therapeutic purposes - and maintains good relationships with them. Married nomads Hussein Sam and Ljutvie Sam and their seven children set up their latest camp on a property next to Hatidze's. While the Sams generally live as dairy farmers, locating wherever their animals can graze, Hussein decides to follow what looks to him to be Hatidze's lucrative business by cultivating their own honey bee hives. What starts out as the cordial neighborly relationship which includes Hatidze imparting her beekeeping knowledge to Hussein, things take a turn when Hussein decides not to heed one key aspect of that knowledge which leads to disaster for them all, as such Hatidze needing to contemplate her future, especially upon what looks to the the imminent passing of her mother leaving her all alone in the world. — Huggo