The Tale of Silyan + S the Wolf
Description
From the co-director of the Oscar-nominated Honeyland (Festival 2019) comes this poetic story of family, land, and storks. In the countryside of North Macedonia, elderly farming couple Nicola and Jana are working on the second story of their home, hoping their extended family will return there from abroad. Falling crop prices and overall economic troubles make this unlikely, but hope persists. Woven into this dynamic is the titular myth involving an angry father who turns his son Silyan into a stork when the boy threatens to leave home. In the film, this folk tale takes on a lived dimension of absent family when Nicola rescues a wounded stork from a graveyard and builds the majestic bird a nest on the in-progress landing of his own empty home. Director Tamara Kotevska seamlessly merges the allegorical and the quotidian to moving and visually spectacular effect. – Rod Armstrong
This film will be preceded by the short film S the Wolf, directed by Sameh Alaa (France/Egypt 2025, 10 min).
Sameh Alaa recounts early lessons in masculinity, vanity, and family in an odyssey of hair growth and loss.
Trailer
Biographies
Tamara Kotevska was born in Prilep, North Macedonia. She co-directed with Ljubomir Stefanov the short film Lake of Apples (2017) and the documentary feature Honeyland (Festival 2019), which was nominated for two Academy Awards. She also directed The Walk (2023), which follows the journey of Amal, a giant puppet who travels from the Syrian border across Europe to highlight the plight of war refugees. As a filmmaker, Tamara is drawn to stories that explore humanity and our relationship to the earth.
Sameh Alaa is an Egyptian director, producer, and writer. His short films Fifteen (2017) and I’m Afraid to Forget Your Face (2020) gained international acclaim, with the latter winning the Palme d’Or at Cannes—the first Egyptian film to do so.