Soil and wings

Director & Screenwriter: Stefan Malešević
Countries: Serbia, North Macedonia
Delegate Production Company: Obol Film (RS)
Producer: Jelena Angelovski
Co-production Company: Minimal Collective
Co-producer: Ivana Shekutkoska

78 min | 2024

Most of the Bektashi-dervishes living in Kanatlar, a muddy tobacco-growing village in North Macedonia, see Ayten as a motherly figure and she tries to offer them support and guidance as much as she does for her two children and four grandchildren. Her husband Erdogan is a dervish priest of the highest rank in their local temple. This hard-working couple shows how equality blooms where you would least expect it – in a rural community of Muslims devoted to religion, family and tradition in one of the poorest regions on the Balkans.

Principal cast: Ajten Arifoska, Erdogan Arifoski