Honeyland
Sky Documentaries

By an astonishing stroke of good luck, the Macedonian directors of Honeyland (30 May) met Hatidze Muratova when they were filming a documentary about the remote region of Northern Macedonia where she lives.

One of the last keepers of wild bees in Europe, Hatidze lives with her bedridden 85-year-old mother in a deserted village in the beautiful, dry, stony mountains four hours from Skopje. Their one-room, slate-tiled, stone home is lit by candles and they cook on a wood-burning stove. In order to sell her unfiltered wild honey in Skopje market, Hatidze must walk miles to the station and back.

The film-makers eventually persuaded her to let them film her life over three years. The result is an immersive and moving piece of documentary television. And the events that unfolded, unplanned, during its making are a microcosm of sustainability, demonstrating how the relationship between humans and the natural world, developed over centuries, can be destroyed in months.