Stunning Trailer for ‘The Tale of Silyan’ Doc Film from North Macedonia
by Alex Billington
November 4, 2025
Source: YouTube
“You poor bird. From today on, we will live together.” National Geographic has unveiled the official trailer for one of the best documentaries of 2025 – a film titled The Tale of Silyan, from acclaimed Macedonian filmmaker Tamara Kotevska, best know for her doc Honeyland from 2019. She filmed a farmer for years in a town in North Macedonia following him and his friendship with one of the local white storks. The story follows Nikola, who is unable to sell his land & crops. His family abandons him to look for a future abroad. Nikola gets a job at a landfill, where he comes across an injured white stork, Sylian. Nikola saves the bird, with the two forming a bond. Through folklore, striking images and intimate observation, Kotevska crafts a story about absence and resilience, and about the delicate thread that ties human survival to the natural world. It’s a beautiful, stunning, amazing film about our connection with nature. My rave review from the Venice Film Festival is quoted in it: “a spectacularly cinematic creation it’s almost completely unbelievable that it’s actually a documentary and these are all real people and this is a real story.” A must watch new doc.
Here’s the official trailer (+ poster) for Tamara Kotevska’s doc The Tale of Silyan, direct from YouTube:
Via AFI Fest: “Documentarian Tamara Kotevska returns with a poetic & lyrical documentary set in rural Macedonia where family farms are struggling as their traditional way of life has become unsustainable. Looking down on this 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 — [drawing] a parallel to its subject, Nikola, a weathered farmer left behind when his adult son and family depart for Germany in search of a more secure future. 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 Tale of Silyan is directed by acclaimed, Oscar-nominated Macedonian filmmaker Tamara Kotevska, director of the doc films Honeyland and The Walk previously, and a few other short films as well. Produced by Tamara Kotevska, Jean Dakar, Anna Hashmi, Jordanco Petkovski. This premiered at the 2025 Venice Film Festival this fall (read our review). National Geographic will debut Kotevska’s The Tale of Silyan doc in select US theaters starting on November 28th, 2025 coming soon this fall. Who wants to watch this doc?
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