The “poor” country with wine and honey – NRK Urix – Foreign news and documentaries

I stand on the old stone bridge in the center of the capital, Skopje. Below us runs the river Vardar.

The bridge is built on a Roman base that has survived the earthquakes of 518, 1535 and 1963.

The bridge has also survived many political earthquakes where it stands at what is called the great crossroads between Europe and the Middle East. A hotbed of philosophers, prophets and generals.

I have film photographer Fejmi Daut with me.

We go to the old town to edit a report on the wine production of North Macedonia.

But as always when visiting North Macedonia, it is easy to get lost in the historic torrent of the Vardar River, which runs as far as Thessaloniki and the Mediterranean.

American journalist Robert Kaplan wrote the following in 1994:

This is where the slave Spartacus rebelled, and this is where Alexander the Great would conquer the world. It’s a raging melting pot. Here, ethnic hatred triggered the fall of the Ottoman Empire and formed the basis for the conflicts of the 20th century, Kaplan writes.

Nation building in the 19th century was certainly explosive in this multi-ethnic mosaic, but film photographer Fejmi Daut brought me back to earth. He is ethnic Turkish, with an Albanian wife and Slavic colleagues and friends.

It reminds me that politics is fleeting. It is eternal life and nature that give us humans meaning.

Honeyland North Macedonia

Fejmi belongs to a group of filmmakers who this year have had an adventurous success with the film “Honninglandet”.

The film received two Oscar nominations, one for best international film and one for best documentary. It was the first time in the history of the Oscars that a documentary was nominated for best international feature film.

The film is about a woman from an ancient mountain village who raises bees the old-fashioned way. Hatidže Muratova lives in a small stove without electricity or water with her mother.

Relatives have long traveled to the big city in hopes of finding a better life. But for Hatidže, there is no greater closure than taking care of her bees. Although in weak moments he admits that he could imagine a man.

Be careful when stocking up on honey. Half is for me and half is for the bees, says Hatidže while smiling at the camera.

Passiar in the bazaar

Fejmi and I found a coffee table in the old bazaar in Skopje. This is where the first Turkish line is located. Men in skullcaps play backgammon and drink tea from hourglass-shaped cups.

We sat at a coffee table. I ask him why make a movie about beekeeping.

Fejmi says they have collaborated for a long time with the Swiss Directorate for Development Cooperation.

They wanted some organic beekeeping. At that time there was a lot of writing in the media that bees were about to disappear without anyone understanding why.

By chance they came across Hatidže Muratova, one of the last in Europe to hunt wild bees.

– It has a honey that cannot be compared with anything. Honestly, we’ve all become skeptical about regular honey and what kind of cheat it can be, says Fejmi.

What would become an informational short quickly became a larger film drama.

Everything took off when a new family arrived in town. And that’s when the filmmakers realized that they had encountered a painful and exhilarating conflict between two values.

The new family wants to learn the art of beekeeping from Hatidže, but they don’t respect nature in the same way.

I will not reveal more of the plot to those who have not seen the film. But the ending is heartbreaking and would have been worth an Oscar.

Because it is about the basic values ​​of life. Sustainable food production, family and local communities. And it puts a big finger on the way modern humans treat our natural resources.

Hollywood calls

There was no Oscars, but Fejmi said that the entire film crew and the main character Hatidže received an invitation to Hollywood.

– Think about it, because it was a Chinese trip to go to the store, now she was going to Los Angeles!

All the movie stars wanted to meet Hatidže, Fejmi said. “Joker” director Todd Phillips, who was perhaps the most coveted star at the Oscars banquet, clung to us like a clown. He had fallen in love with Hatidže and our movie, tell Fejmi and laugh.

Fejmi himself has become sought after in the film industry. A Chinese director took him to Wuhan to document the crown crisis this spring. With a camera wrapped in plastic, he documented the battle between life and death in China’s intensive care units.

On the way to the studio

We have drunk our tea and arrive at the television studio where we will finish editing the wine report.

We get into a small elevator and go up to the 12th floor.

In the dilapidated premises of the Alsat television company, I meet the editor Kosta Anastasov. Helped cut and structure Honey Land’s raw material. We are talking about 400 hours of video that would turn into 87 minutes of gripping drama.

Kosta nervously smokes while we edit, because I told him that we do a report for Norway’s biggest and most important newscast, Dagsrevyen.

You can’t trace starbursts there in the garden.

We then enjoyed a Turkish coffee in the bazaar. I ask the two of them what the next project will be. It will be more nature that I will get to know. They tell about gay turtles on an empty island in Lake Prespa.

I start to laugh, but I take it easy. There were probably many who laughed when they started filming a peasant woman and her bees.