THE TALE OF SILYAN (TIFF 2025) – Review by Rachel West
Director Tamara Kotevska brings a Macedonian folktale to life in The Tale of Silyan, a beautiful film that weaves themes of migration, conservation, and humanity into one memorable documentary that transcends the genre.
Bowing at the Venice Film Festival before making its North American debut at TIFF, The Tale of Silyan centres its story on two characters: farmer Nikola and Silyan, a stork. Nikola, his wife Jana, and their family are farmers in North Macedonia, living a hard-working but enjoyable life together. But the family and community are faced with economic challenges that make the farms unsustainable and unprofitable.
Unable to sell their produce at fair prices, farmers are forced to sell their land or move abroad looking for work, as Nikola’s family does. Left behind to oversee the home and sell the farmland, Nikola focuses his attention on caring for a rescued stork with a broken wing.
Kotevska’s 2020 film Honeyland was nominated for both Best Documentary Feature and Best International Film. Seamlessly blending Nikola’s story and stunning images of storks in their natural habitat, it is easy to mistake The Tale of Silyan for a fictional narrative feature and not a documentary. It is a testament to both Kotevska’s sensibilities as a director and the real-life characters that are so wonderfully expressive and captivating that it is hard to believe they are not trained actors working from a script.
The traditional Macedonian folktale of Silyan perfectly parallels Nikola’s relationship with his absent son. In the folktale, a man named wants to leave his village to seek new opportunities, but his father curses his departure, turning him into a stork. Neither accepted among the stork nor the human community, Silyan leads a lonely life, observing his family from afar and wishing for connection.
The legend is a beautiful parallel for Nikola’s own struggles. He has a son who has moved away, and now, a daughter and her family who are off to Germany to seek work as their agricultural land dries up. Nikola’s loving wife Jana has also departed to help care for her granddaughter. Like Silyan, Nikola is adrift on his own. When Nikola rescues Silyan, caring for the bird and helping build him a nest, he finds an easy and peaceful companion in the bird. They are anchors for one another in a personal time of upheaval.
A watchful observer, Kotevska’s film focuses on the natural world and themes of migration. Storks and farmers have existed alongside one another for centuries, with the farmers’ fields a prime feeding ground for the birds. Ever watchful from their nests high atop telephone poles, the storks witness the steady decline of agricultural land and a decaying way of life. The once-fertile farmlands have become landfills. Much like humans, they have shifted their habits and now scour the dumps for food scraps and trash. It is sad to witness this transformation of both human and bird.
Despite its feeling of melancholy, The Tale of Silyan is filled with strikingly beautiful and uplifting visuals, particularly of the storks. They are framed gloriously, set against blue skies and in close-ups that could be photographic stills worthy of framing. Under Kotevska’s eye, the stork becomes a symbol of resilience and hope for Nikola.
A quiet film that could get lost amid high-profile TIFF premieres, The Tale of Silyan will reward those who seek it out. With sublime images and multi-layered themes, Kotevska has delivered a worthy successor to Honeyland and only further cemented herself as a filmmaker with empathy and a unique vision.
