In rural North Macedonia, where farming can no longer sustain the people living there, Nikola watches the land he has tended for decades as his family slowly scatters. While his loved ones leave in search of work abroad, an injured stork, Silyan, becomes an unexpected companion. Woven through Nikola’s story is an old Macedonian legend of a son transformed into a bird after defying his father, creating a poetic echo between migration, loss and the longing for home. With an impressionistic camera that observes people, landscapes and birds with equal tenderness, Oscar-nominated director Tamara Kotevska (Honeyland) moves fluidly between documentary observation and fable. Quietly composed and rich in atmosphere, the film transforms everyday realities into a meditation on displacement, resilience and belonging. (ME)

Presented with the support of the Critical Media Lab McGill and of the Leadership for the Ecozoic

The Tale of Silyan