The Tale of Silyan
A beautiful documentary film by director Tamara Kotevska, we were lucky enough to catch at the Melbourne International Film Festival (MIFF) in August 2026.
Documentary.
Man meets stork in this story of rural struggle and rehabilitation from one of the filmmakers behind the Oscar-nominated Honeyland.
Nikola Conev, born into a long lineage of farmers in North Macedonia, is struggling. Harsh economic conditions, the collapse of local markets and the decline of rural living have gripped his local community. His wife, children and grandchildren have all left the country for greater opportunities. At a loss, and filled with loneliness, he brings home a white stork with a broken wing. As he nurses it back to health, Conev experiences his own sense of healing.
Rehabilitating Nature and ourselves
Tamara Kotevska’s previous portrait of farming in rural North Macedonia, Honeyland (co-directed with Ljubomir Stefanov, MIFF 2019), received Oscar nominations for both Best Documentary and Best International Feature Film. The Tale of Silyan, premiered at Venice and won Best Feature Documentary at the International Documentary Association Awards. MIFF describes the film as ‘a unique modern-day folktale filled with heart, humour and spectacular cinematography’. https://miff.com.au/program/film/the-tale-of-silyan
Fate of humans and storks intertwined.
A beautiful documentary and a favourite at MIFF in 2026. The exploration of the relationship between the fate of the humans in this story and the storks, in harmony during the plowing and cultivation of the fields as the storks find frogs, insects, and building material for their nests as the farmers work, when all of the family except Nikola move to Germany for work in fast food and for a regular pay check, the farm is abandoned. The only job that farmer Nikola and his fellow older farmers can find is working heavy machinery in a landfill, so too the storks end up scavenging from the landfill, many sick and dying. Hope returns as the farmer returns to his land and starts farming it again, and so do the storks. Insights into the mass agricultural food economy, big food retailers and the harm that competitive pricing can do to the farmer and the wider ecosystem. The intertwining lives of human communities and storks reminding me of the many stork nests in towns throughout Morocco on the road between Tangiers and Fes through the Rif Mountains. Some stork nests so large they cave in the roof of buildings as shown in the film where Nicola and his friend collect materials for their man-made nest for the injured stork he cares for. Such a thoughtful and beautiful film, that had us thinking for many days and weeks after.
The images on this website are taken from the Tale of Silyan official site and the National Geographic site https://www.taleofsilyan.com/ and https://films.nationalgeographic.com/the-tale-of-silyan Credits: Ciconia Film/Jean Dakar. They are shared here to promote and share the film and the artists involved.