In October, watch the Academy Award-nominated documentary, global hit Honeyland by Tamara Kotevska and Ljubomir Stefanov in the DOCUSPACE online cinema. On the occasion of the World Habitat Day on October 5, we are showing a film which expressively tells the story of the harm which expansion of the Western way of life can cause to a place.

The film focuses on the beekeeper Hatidze, who lives in a remote mountain village in Northern Macedonia, takes care of her ill mother and gathers wild honey. Hatidze’s life changes fundamentally when a nomad family comes to the village. The joy of neighborliness turns into despair when the outsiders break the local way of life and, by their ignorance, kill the wild bees. This cinematic fable reminds us all that we should give as much as we take.

We have invited the founder of the Ukraїner project Bohdan Lohvynenko to become the ambassador of the third season of screenings on DOCUSPACE:

“As I travelled all over Ukraine and explored it with the Ukraїner team, I constantly asked myself: are we ready for openness? Are the traditional crafts ready for scaling up, are the pristine natural locations ready for an influx of tourists, are the castles prepared for emerging local businesses, are closed communities prepared for the realities of life in a globalized world? The film Honeyland asks the same questions of us and the whole world. What are we prepared to do to preserve biodiversity? Are we prepared to maintain traditions without forcing others to follow our own way of life? In addition to the complex questions which I have no definite answers to, this film also speaks about the incredible beauty of this world.”

We will discuss the preservation of natural resources, documentary filmmaking which challenges feature films, and how to promote a film to get it included in the Academy Award shortlist at our online discussions which you will have a chance to watch on docuspace.org, as well as on the Festival’s Facebook page and YouTube channel.

9 October, 7 p.m.
The Most Conscious Left Alive: Life hacks for an environmentally conscious consumer
Humanity’s environmental footprint is growing rapidly. Our lack of habit to consume consciously and humanity’s damaging effect on the environment reduce biodiversity on the planet and bring the global environmental disaster closer. It’s time to ask ourselves, will there be enough environmental resources for us and the future generations?
It may seem like one person cannot influence the mountains of plastic in rivers and forests, the preservation of animals and plants in their region, and sometimes even their own neighbors who burn dry leaves next to their windows. But in fact, tools for influence exist, and we can learn to fight for our right to a clean environment with them. We have invited experts in various areas who will prove that you can become more environmentally conscious without sacrificing your quality of life.

16 October, 7 p.m.
Tête-à-tête: Tetiana Kononenko & Alex Malyshenko
Honeyland is the first film in history nominated for Oscar in two categories at the same time: Best Documentary Feature and Best International Feature. This double nomination resonates with the reviews of film critics, who remark in unison that this picture resembles a fiction film. And although the filmmakers claim that there are “barely any staged scenes in the film,” Honeyland makes us think about genre hybridity. The curator and filmmaker Tetiana Kononenko and the film journalist and curator Alex Malyshenko will discuss the boundaries of the documentary in filmmaking, directors’ positions, what it means to shoot and edit in general, and what is hidden behind the fascinating form of Honeyland.

TBA
DOCU/PRO talk with Atanas Georgiev
As the Academy Award race starts, it’s just the right time to find out what to do to get your film shortlisted for the world’s most prestigious film awards. The editor and producer of Honeyland Atanas Georgiev will share his experience of creating and promoting the film in a conversation with the filmmaker Roman Bondarchuk, whose documentary Ukrainian Sheriffs was also nominated for Oscar in the Best Foreign Language Film category in 2016.

We work on the development of the DOCUSPACE online cinema, which we will present to our audience in a new format already this autumn. It has become possible thanks to the support of the House of Europe.