By Virginia Yapp
Filmmaker Tamara Kotevska had never made a feature before arriving in Bekirlija, Macedonia, to shoot Honeyland. As she recounted to Filmmaker magazine, she and her co-director, Ljubomir Stefanov, spent the next three years living and working in the remote village without running water or electricity, dealing with extreme temperatures as well as swarms of bees. “It all seems like a fairytale,” Kotevska and Stefanov said of their incredible journey, after Honeyland premiered to great buzz and acclaim at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival.
Today marks another chapter in the power documentary’s inspiring story: Honeyland made history with the release of the 2020 Academy Award nominations, becoming the first project to earn nods in both Best Documentary (Feature) and Best International Feature Film (the category previously known as Best Foreign Film). Currently streaming on Hulu, the documentary centers on Hatidze Muratova, the last woman working as a wild beekeeper in Europe. Find the complete list of Sundance-supported films that were nominated below, and tune in on Sunday, February 9, 2020, to watch the ceremony.
DOCUMENTARY (FEATURE)
American Factory
The Edge of Democracy
Honeyland
