Opening Friday, December 12, at the Laemmle Glendale Theatre is a moving film from North Macedonia – Tamara Kotevska’s The Tale of Sylian (81 min., 2025). It is set in rural Macedonia where family farms are struggling as their traditional way of life has become unsustainable. Previously nominated for an Oscar for her documentary Honeyland (2019), Kotevska has woven together a lyrical documentary account rooted in the Macedonian myth of Silyan, a boy transformed into a stork after defying his father. In this film, her third feature, she incorporates fairy-tale whimsy with political urgency while examining changing times and dying traditions. The Tale of Sylian was featured at this year’s AFI FEST in October 2025.
The story revolves around the farmer’s son, Silyan, who is caught between two worlds as his father’s curse turns him into a stork. Large white storks are one of the more common birds found in Southeastern Europe and here the dwindling stork population serves as a corollary to gradual disappearance of traditional farmers in the Macedonian countryside. The Tale of Sylian is a nature story transformed in a parable about humans and their avian bond. Set in the village of Češinovo, where farmers, whose numbers have been dwindling, the film is centered on 60-year-old Nikola Conev, a robust and hardworking man with a youthful, bright energy. Nikola’s wife, Jana, is a fine match for him in terms of vitality and strength, and they take time for playful flirting as they work the land he grew up on.
In the present day, we meet our protagonist, 60-year-old farmer Nikola (Nikola Coneva), and his family – wife Jana, daughter Ana, and her husband and small daughter. They work the fields, farming tobacco, watermelons, potatoes and peppers, and it is all very idyllic, but they simply cannot make enough money growing crops to sustain themselves. In the film, Ana decides to take her family to Germany in search of a better life, but things are difficult with a small child, so Jana joins them to help. This leaves Nikola on his own, and he puts his land up for sale and replaces farming by working at a landfill as a bulldozer and tractor driver. As Nikola’s closest friend Ilija explains, the birds used to follow tractors in the fields to peck at the remaining fruits and vegetables. Now, they feed at the landfill. Nikola finds one with a broken wing and adopts him.
Set in rural Macedonia, family farms are struggling as their traditional way of life has become unsustainable. Looking down on this human drama are the town’s majestic storks perched in enormous nests atop telephone poles while their clattering beaks provide a constant soundtrack. Rooted in the Macedonian myth of Silyan – a boy transformed into a stork after defying his father – the film draws a parallel to its subject, Nikola. When Nikola encounters an injured stork and tends to the fragile bird, a tender bond forms – one that reflects both his yearning for companionship and the looming uncertainty of his vanishing way of life.
The film weaves together four threads together: the Macedonian folktale of the boy who became a stork, a nature documentary on the white storks of the region, the economic plight of a Macedonian farmer and his family, and a human-interest story that farmer rescuing and befriending an injured bird. The most striking parts are the nature documentary passages, which often feel as if they could have been lifted straight of a National Geographic film. The imagery and cinematography are quite stunning. There are moments when the four stories brush against each other in interesting ways. The film has been picked up by National Geographic for distribution; it is Macedonia’s submission for consideration for Best International Feature Film for the 2025 Academy Awards.
