This year the little Balkanic country in the North of the greek province with the same name is in the spotlight at Fribourg International Film Festival and like Teona Strugar Mitevska, director of «God Exists, Her Name Is Petrunya» (MK, SL, HR, BE, FR 2019) said at a Q & A: “It’s a huge honor and the first time in the history of world cinema!”

My screenings started with «Honeyland», which is probably the most touching documentary I’ve seen recently. It focuses on Hatidže Muratova, a turkish woman living in a desolate village and taking care of her old mother whilst harvesting and selling honey. The film was shot over the course of three years by director duo Tamara Kotevska and Ljubo Stefanov. Their film was nominated at the Oscars in 2020 and awarded in Sundance as well as in Sarajevo in 2019. Don’t miss it!

Later in the day I had the chance to see «Before the Rain» an epic fiction about the conflicts between Macedonians and Albanians in the 90ies. It narrates the story of Aleksander, a renowned Macedonian photographer working for a London based agency and having an affair with a British Woman, also employee of the agency. After having killed, as he puts it, whilst commissioned to document the war in Bosnia, he decides to turn his back to the glamorous press photography and to turn back to his village in North Macedonia. The film was nominated for an Oscar in 1995 and won the Golden Lion at the Mostra di Venezia in 1994.

To close my first festival day I tried watching Teona Strugar Mitevska’s «God Exists, Her Name Is Petrunya» but ironically slept through most of it. This doesn’t mean it was a bad movie per se, but of course it would be hypocritical to tell you about it. To cut a long story short: An unemployed and unmarried Macedonian woman with a degree in History witnesses a religious ceremony in a city called Štip and decides to jump after a cross that was thrown in the river, even though this jump-and-save-the-cross ritual is reserved to men. A very feministic and subversive film with a female protagonist defying all beauty canons. Check my Instagram for some videos of the Q&A with Mitevska yesterday evening.