THE TALE OF SILYAN

description

A down-on-his luck farmer develops a unique bond with a wounded white stork as he nurses the bird back to health.

From the Oscar-nominated director of HONEYLAND comes a poignant and visually arresting story set in the heart of rural Macedonia. Nikola, a farmer grappling with the harsh realities of new government policies, finds himself unable to sell his land or crops. When his family leaves in search of a better life abroad, Nikola takes a job as a landfill attendant, where he encounters the injured white stork Silyan. As he nurses the bird back to health, an unlikely bond forms between man and animal. The result is a deeply moving film that touches on climate change, economic migration, resilience and the quiet power of connection.

OFFICIAL SELECTION
Venice Film Festival 2025
Toronto International Film Festival 2025

DIRECTOR'S BIO
Tamara Kotevska was born in Prilep, North Macedonia, and fell in love with filmmaking early on. In 2010, she won a US exchange student scholarship and moved to Chattanooga, Tennessee, where she continued to study documentary filmmaking. Upon her return to North Macedonia, Kotevska co-directed LAKE OF APPLES (2016), a short documentary that received over ten grand prizes in international documentary festivals around the world. After this film, Tamara co-directed her debut feature-length documentary HONEYLAND, which went on to win three awards at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival including the Grand Jury Prize for World Cinema Documentary and two Academy Award nominations in 2020 for Best Documentary Feature and Best International Feature. After HONEYLAND, Kotevska directed her second feature-length documentary, THE WALK. She is currently in post-production on her debut fiction film, MAN VS. FLOCK, and is developing a new documentary about the Dolgan mammoth tusk hunters, which will shoot in the northernmost area of the Siberian tundra.