‘Honeyland’

07 Sep ‘Honeyland’

‘Honeyland’ is an extraordinary portrait of  Hatidze Muratova, a woman keeping wild bees using traditional methods. The story which unfolds, came about as the film-makers Tamara Kotevska and Ljubomire Stefanov, were filming in Northern Macedonia, and met the bee keeper. Unusually, the film was Oscar nominated for both ‘best documentary’ and ‘best international feature’. It is visually stunning. Gold light pours like honey through the film, as we step into the bee keeper’s domain.

Much like the narrative of the film, it is long, slow and painful. The old ways meet the contradictory demands of modern poverty, played out through the interactions between Muratova, and the family who move in next door.

At the Medicine Festival, I made a bee line to hear some of the barefoot hive philosophy of Chris Park. He is a very unassuming Dad, beekeeper, Druid, and storyteller. He spoke of ancient lore from a time when Britain was known as ‘The Honey Isle’. As he spoke, he invited us to roll words around our mouths with him, to hear the etymology of bee keeping. It was as though we were sipping linguistic mead or metheglin (mead brewed with herbs or spices). He spoke of the three medicines in Druid philosophy – water, honey and labour. Like the finest pollen taken from bee legs, unadulterated, he is the bees knees.