Masterclass in Belgrade
I have just said goodbye to the Macedonian cameraman Samir Ljuma, who expressed his joy to have been here at the Magnificent7 Festival, where 1300 spectators were totally enthusiastic about ”Honeyland”, the opening film tuesday night. Yes, I said, this is what festivals are for – the famous triangle of a film, the ones who have made it AND the audience.
Samir Ljuma did a workshop session together with Atanas Georgiev giving inside information on the production of the film, the editing, the camera work and of course the relationship with the protagonist Hatidze. Workshop session is a wrong word, it was a masterclass, so precise with one master, who was not there (editor and producer Atanas Georgiev) and one who was very much present, painting the film, Samir Ljuma, because a painting it is, in my review
I refer to Vermeer, and Zoran and Svetlana Popovic wrote like this in their introduction on the website ”created magical sights of the mountains, villages and village life and especially refined painting-like nocturnal scenes lit by the fire…”
400 hours of material… a lot to be thrown out of course, Atanas said, who built the film as a fiction using classical dramaturgical rules – as you can see in the film. 100 shooting days over 3 years. We need conflicts, Atanas said to the shooting team, give her one line she can say to get the opposition to the gypsy family entering her territory. And he got it, “they are Turks”, she says to her mother in one of those magnificent scenes inside the small cottage, where the old mother has been lying in her bed for 4 years.
Yes, the kids were looking at the camera, Hatidze was very natural. She is now living in the village, the film crew bought a house for her and check out
read this: “You’ve obviously met Hatidze, the Sam family and their 7 kids. Actually, they are 8 kids now. The last one was born on the day of the film’s premiere at Sundance back in January. The Sundance Kid… who would have thought. They would be happy to meet you too, but they are in Honeyland, a place far away, where anything goes and nothing is for sure. You can now help Hatidze, these 8 kids and their parents to have a better life by donating. After all, it would be a transaction, since these are tough kids and even tougher people. They wouldn’t want your pity, so instead they would like to make you an offer where you buy some of our finest honey and they’ll earn it one way or the other. You can get a jarful of 30g of Honeyland’s finest honey and we’ll make sure that both you, Hatidze, and the Sam’s get what’s yours. The earnings from your goodwill will go into improving the lives of the protagonists as well as the local community.”
The film that won three awards at the Sundance Festival, has now an American distributor, who wants to take it to the Oscars… Good luck!
