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- [00:00]
A
You're listening to the Monocle Daily, first broadcast on the 7th of January, 2026 on Monocle Radio. The United States seizes a Russian flagged oil tanker and threatens Greenland. Is nothing sacred? Italy's government plans electoral reforms designed to keep themselves in power. And perhaps most importantly, what to do about the global scourge that is hair loss. Yes, you heard that right. I'm Chris Chermack. The Monocle Daily starts now. Hello and welcome to the Monocle Daily, coming to you from our studios here at Midori House in London. I'm Chris Chermack. My guests Isabel Hilton and Philippe Marliere will discuss the day's big stories. And for some distraction, we'll hear from the director of a modern day folk tale about a Balkan farmer and his injured stork. Stay tuned. All that and more coming up right here on the Monocle Daily. This is the Monocle Daily and I'm Chris Chermack. I am joined today by Isabel Hilton, founder of China Dialogue and a visiting professor of King's College London's Lao Institute, and Philippe Marliere, professor of French and European politics at University College London. Hello to you both. How are we feeling today?
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B
I think we're all spinning, actually.
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C
Hello.
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A
Yes. Do we need, like a bit of a hug? Are we in a daze?
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C
Some warmth?
- [01:31]
A
Yes. The news is pretty incredible. I mean, Isabelle, I understand, for the holidays, for the break. Happy New Year to you as well. You were away recharging in the islands.
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B
I was away in the peace of the West Highlands of Scotland, where with, you know, the loudest sounds of the birds and, you know, the occasional drunk falling over. But it was very quiet.
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A
And Philippe, you were in the quiet confines of London, but you enjoyed it very much.
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C
Yes, very much so. I didn't leave the city. I love it so much that I couldn't leave it. And that was nice. London has a lot to offer at that time during the Christmas period.
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A
And it is something of a distraction from everything that we're going to now be talking about because, well, rather amazingly, it would not seem to be hyperbole when I say at the outset of this show that the US has opened multiple fronts for potential conflict in the past 24 hours, seizing two oil tankers, including a Russian flagged one, with the help of the United Kingdom. Also ordering Venezuela to cut relations with China and Iran, which the US has incidentally also threatened with military action, all the while promising to take over Greenland and forcing European leaders to come to its defense. The Nobel Prize Committee's decision not to award Donald Trump with the Peace Prize last year, while never really likely, is now looking pretty prophetic, I think. Philippe, let's start with this. France is taking the lead in crafting a European response to the very real threat coming from the US Over Greenland. Can we believe that I'm even saying those words?
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C
Yeah, that sounds quite extraordinary in reference to what happened before on the weekend when, of course, the US Military intervened in Venezuela and, and kidnapped, because that's the word, kidnapped the head of state, Maduro, and took him away, where I think the reaction of European leaders was very lame, to say the least. So I think it takes probably a real threat to a European territory. Greenland is part of the Kingdom of Denmark, so part of Europe and the eu, which is a NATO member, to. To probably get their act together and try to put together a kind of response. It's not even a response. It's a kind of warning that, in fact, the US should stop short of really doing anything silly there, I.e. invading, and not even say bombing, because that's one of the options that Trump alluded to also over the weekend. So, yes, I think that was probably the least they could do. But I think until now, I think we could say that Europe has been pretty. The reaction has been pretty weak. And I think probably we can discuss whether they have other options. It's not sure, but at least it's not a very strong rebuttal of a transaction.
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A
Well, invading Greenland would be silly, let's admit that here. And yet this is the reality that we are living in. Isabel, at the start of the this year. How do you look at all of this and from your perspective? I mean, will China be gleefully watching something like this? The internal NATO discord, having the Danish prime Minister say that NATO will be over if the US Invades Greenland?
- [05:09]
B
Well, anything that damages Europe and NATO is to China's advantage. So, you know, Donald Trump is doing a lot of heavy lifting for both Putin and Xi Jinping here. To me, it makes absolutely no sense to threaten to occupy Greenland and militarily on security grounds. The United States has had bases in Greenland since World War II. It actually built a base under the ice at one point, forgetting that glaciers move. So the whole thing got crushed. It's had early warning systems. It's had, you know, the only reason that Greenland has been neglected is that the US For a couple of decades was looking elsewhere and has only got one rusting icebreaker. But, you know, that's not Europe's fault. It's not Denmark's fault. There is no impediment to the United States putting more defense into Greenland if it so wishes. There is no impediment to the United States engaging in mining in 20 years when the ice has melted enough. So it makes absolutely no sense to do this by threat when you can do it by invitation. So why? What is the point and what is the result? Well, the result is clearly very upsetting for Europe, very destabilizing for NATO. European countries having to think, you know, do we have an ally at all in the United States? It doesn't seem to me that we do. But all our strategic plans, all our military supplies are all locked in to the us. The UK can't fly half its air force without US permission. It can't launch its nuclear weapons without US permission. So we're locked in because of decades of post war trust. And when somebody comes along and breaks that, it's going to take a while to get a coherent response. So we hear a lot about, well, Europe's not doing enough. The European Union was built for a completely different purpose. It's the wrong shape for a big, bold geostrategic play. NATO was the geostrategic player and that is what is under threat now. So it's complicated.
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A
That is a very good point, Isabelle. What do you make of that, Philippe? I mean, it is if in theory NATO is over, as the Danish Prime Minister warns, that does mean, and even before that happens, that is the current reality, that it means the European Union, say, has to be the one that is stepping up and crafting some sort of military response. That is what France is, I guess, trying to lead, maybe with the UK as well. So maybe it's a European Union plus one. Where do we stand on all of that? Because as you said, Europe, its response has been quite muted, but surely behind the scenes it is actually preparing for this kind of thing.
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C
Yes, quite. And I agree with Isabel's point about the EU wasn't launched or created for being a kind of military defense unit. I think NATO has been there for that purpose. So I think now, given that the current US President seems to be intent on sort of, let's put it, destroying NATO or making it largely relevant, I suppose now, yes, the EU should probably start thinking about its own defence, the EU plus the uk, given that the UK is no longer part of the EU at the moment. But that will take time. That will take time. That will take time because the EU has lots of members with different viewpoints on it and they are. Some of them have nuclear power. It was also very Interesting that you reminded us of that. The UK being locked in, in terms of defence and to start with, nuclear power is absolutely dependent on us Will, that's not the case for France.
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B
France did not make that mistake.
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C
But you know, France going it alone, that's also rather a kind of meaningless proposition. I think one needs the whole of Europe to act together. I think that will take time. It would take probably, and I touch wood, I hope we will not get to that very serious point. But I think it will get further tension on the European continent, possibly another war somewhere for probably Europe finally achieving something. But that would take time. And I'm speaking here in terms of years, but I think if NATO is now irrelevant, yes, the EU has to do something.
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A
Well, Isabel, you suggested in your first answer that Donald Trump is doing the work of Putin and Xi for them. And yet the other aspect of the news today is the seizing of a Russian flagged oil tanker, the basic oil embargo on Venezuela, which is directed very much at China as well by sort of saying, well, I don't know. That's what I'd like to ask you about. Whether you even think that the US would actually stop China from getting oil from Venezuela. I mean, when you look at all of that side of this, is China going to be fuming at the same time over Trump's attempts to kind of kick them out of Latin America?
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B
It would take a lot of work to kick China out of Latin America. I mean, if you just look at the number of times Xi Jinping or senior Chinese officials have visited Latin America compared to US presidents in the last 15 years, I mean, it's pretty extraordinary. China has regularly has entire meetings with the China SILAC meetings as it does with Africa. China has been extremely proactive. Now, you've got a spectrum of governments now in Latin America. So you have Milei, for example, in Argentina, who is a Trump client, and you have some right wing governments coming into power. But you've also got Brazil, which is far closer to China than it is to the United States. You're not going to kick China out of Latin America. There is a loss of face for China in this whole episode because their special envoy to Latin America was talking to Maduro literally hours before the operation began. And there are plenty of rumors in Latin America that he came to warn Maduro that this was going to happen. And so that's kind of embarrassing. And China had upgraded the relationship with Venezuela. The oil supply is completely irrelevant. It's a very small part of China's. It's big for Venezuela. Large proportion of what Venezuela still exports, which is way down, as we know, on what it used to export. It's a very small proportion of China's supply. And most of it goes to what are called teapot refineries, which are the little local refineries. It's heavy crude. It's mostly used for bitumen, for building roads. China can buy it anywhere in the oil market. If you block one source, you just promote another. You can get it from Canada. You can get it absolutely anywhere. The problem that China has is not so much the oil supply, it's the remnants of the deals that China did with Chavez, which were loans for oil. And those kind of those still have some outstanding. It's about 9 billion outstanding on those loans. Now, that's not an insignificant sum, but it's a manageable sum if there's a will to manage it. And I think that China would be pretty fed up if the new arrangements meant that it was not going to be repaid on that debt.
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A
Well, on that note, then, just to follow up on that, Isabelle, I mean, is there something that you fear or wonder that the US Will do in this sort of attempt to establish itself in the Western Hemisphere that China would actually be forced to respond to if it, say, does think oil is not that much of a big deal? We didn't get that much from Venezuela anyway. You can have it. Is there something else where they would step up and say, no, we're not allowing this?
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B
Well, for example, in Argentina and in a couple of other countries, there are some strategic assets. So to do with satellites, to do with China's space program in Argentina, you know, and Milei has done nothing to close that down. There was that episode, if you remember, where the Chinese purported to be about to build an alternative to the Panama Canal in Nicaragua. That's gone away. But, you know, there are ways that the Chinese can kind of twist tail. But the big worry, I think, would be the massive investments. For example, they're building a very large port in Peru, and they have a lot of fixed asset investments in Latin America and an interruption to that. I mean, that port is meant to export across the Pacific, so you could interrupt trade. And the Latin American markets are pretty important for China now. But, you know, that would require coherent policy from Washington, and I don't see any.
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A
Yeah, well, that's one fair point, Philippe, whether this is coherent or not. Actually, I just wanted to ask you about Europe's relationship with Latin America, if you have a view on that as well. Because we have this Mercosur for example vote coming up, the trade deal with Latin America which France has been trying to block. Does any of this change Europe's relationship, say with Latin America? If it's having so much trouble with the United States?
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C
It's too early to say what the impact of what happened in Venezuela recently, last week be on Europe and particularly in relation to the Mercour Su chapter. France is now in a minority on that. I think the Italians are now ready to sign up to that deal. So it might happen in fact. But I think what, in general, what is quite significant is that Europe has taken, with probably the exception of Spain for obvious reasons, little interest in what goes on in Latin America. And that's probably one of the clear effects of the Monroe Doctrine. You know, Europe has had to stay away from Latin America for over a century now and I think it has kept to it. Things might change like China or even Russia by the way, we haven't mentioned Russia yet, but Russia was supposed to provide some kind of military assistance to Venezuela and I think it wasn't very effective because the US could go in quite easily. In the end it's very hard to say. The Mercourseur. I don't think that what just happened might probably delay even more that the signing of it. But the situation as it stands is France is now in a minority or even alone and being still unwilling to sign it but might have to do it eventually. Yes.
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A
Well Isabel, just a final thought on this. I did want to get your take on the so called Don Road doctrine because that too I wonder how China sees this. Russia for that matter, as Philippe mentioned as well in theory, perhaps they will be content with the idea of leaving the western hemisphere too. The United States for the most part, but also only presumably if the US doesn't get involved in say Taiwan and China's affairs back east.
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B
Well that does seem to be the kind of proposition, doesn't it that you, that you divide the world up into spheres of influence, you know, rather as we, as we had, you know, the pre Westphalian arrangements. But well, the Monroe Doctrine, you know, it came into being after the War of 1812 and it was really an act of solidarity from one young republic to another to stop the republics of the Americas being crushed by imperial European powers. The extension of it to Greenland is frankly a stretch. But if it were to give license to China to say okay, we have our own Monroe Doctrine in Asia, you know, that's a far more valuable bit of real estate in the modern world. Economy than Latin America is. You know, the United States can dominate Latin America. It has for years. You know, El Norte, as they call it, was always, was always there. There have been 40 interventions since the founding of the United States overthrowing governments in Latin America. They're kind of used to it. The arrival of China was a bit of a relief because it gave them, you know, an alternative source of development, investment of a new set of customers to serve. But the political authority of the US Never kind of went away. If Trump is really proposing or imagining that he can be entirely comfortable in the Western hemisphere and China can dominate Asia, he's made a typically bad barcode.
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A
Well, let's move on for now from Venezuela and so many other angles we could be talking about of the perilous state of the world order, because, let's face it, we could all use a bit of a break. And in Italy, there has been an interesting development with Italian Prime Minister Giorgio Meloni's party pushing for major electoral reforms that basically scrap direct elections to the country's parliament. The move is, at least in theory, designed to help Meloni's own party win next year's elections and avoid a left wing alliance from taking over. Whether it actually works is anyone's guess. But Philippe, this is also, frankly depressing. But it's not geopolitics, at least. Have we entered a sort of win at all costs mentality in democracies? Is this what this boils down to? Meloni is doing this to win in the US we're seeing the same thing, Congressional redistricting, which is hardly about serving democracy anymore.
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C
Yes, right. At least Melanie is not threatening to invade or bomb any other country, unlike Trump. But yes, she's proposing to change electoral law in Italy. And I think at the moment it's a kind of first. It's a mixed system, first past the post and some kind of PR proportional representation. So it's a mixed system. It used to be entirely proportional representation in the past. And I think my first remark is that critiques in Italy are saying that she wants to do that because she fears an alliance of the left, you know, the Democratic Party and the Five Star Movement, which could threaten a majority. At the moment, she is running a coalition of three right wing or far right parties. I would say it's never a good idea to change electoral law for the sole purpose of winning or not losing an election. I think that's always been a temptation in all democracies. Britain, well, Britain has had first passed the purpose for a very long time. I Know France for sure. It's been done in the past. Mitterrand in 1986 set out proportional representation to avoid a large defeat against the mainstream right, and with the result of sending to the national assembly for the first time, 35 FN National Frontier MPs. So, you know, it always backfires. I think the point about electoral law is that if what matters is political culture, you know, you may set up, you may have proportional representation. Let's assume, let's imagine we're doing that in the uk. If you don't have the kind of political culture which goes along with it, which is coalition consultation, pluralism, I don't think we have that mentality in the uk nor in France. It won't work. It won't work. So I think it's more complex than simply changing the electoral system.
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A
There is a vanishingly small number of democracies that have that political culture that you're talking about, Philippe, of coalitions and cooperation. Isabel. I mean, here in the uk, as Philippe mentioned, we kind of have the poster child for first past the post, as it's called. I mean, that is what happens here in the uk. It's how parliamentarians are elected.
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B
It's true.
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A
Are we generally happy with it?
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B
Well, it's looking a little tattered, that poster, frankly, at the moment. And I think it worked best when, I mean, the argument for it was that it gave you a clear result in stable government. And that was okay when the political parties represented relatively clear interests. So the Tories, you know, landed journey landed, gentlemen. And Capital and Labor. Organized labor. But, you know, the British economy doesn't function like that anymore.
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A
Neither do we have two parties in the UK anymore.
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B
Well, indeed. But if you used to sort of know you could vote your interests, as it were, in the uk, now, if you want to vote your interest, you're scratching your head. And the fact is that this kind of fragmentation of politics and general kind of feeling that they're all as bad as each other, let's vote for something completely mad. You know, that's quite dangerous. But the fact is that the last time that the UK had a government for which the majority of voters actually voted was 1922, and that was because it was a coalition. Every government since then has been elected by a minority of voters. Now, you know, that has its problems, and I agree with Philippe, that we don't have the political culture, certainly in England, of sitting down and negotiating coalitions, but we no longer have a functioning first past the post system. You get crazy results where you get an overwhelming majority, as we have now, for a government that nobody really loves, it got the same number of votes as Corbyn did and he lost. So it just doesn't make sense. And if politics don't make sense to people, then you kind of have. You have trouble.
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A
Well, this is the problem for so many democracies, isn't it, Philippe? At the moment? I mean, also, when you look at France, for that matter, and the sort of political dissonance function that we're seeing there, I guess the question is we can talk about electoral reform all day, but whichever system you have, whether it's proportional representation or first past the post, if the politicians can't get along and form some kind of agreement coalition in this fractured environment, it just doesn't work.
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C
Yes, absolutely. And I think one of the virtues of the first paste de pers, or the French majoritarian system, normally with two ballots, because if you can't secure 50% plus one vote in the first round, then there is a second round. Both systems were allegedly good at creating majorities for one party or two or three parties. In France, it's no longer the case because, as Isabel put it, extreme fragmentation. People no longer vote according to some kind of class or particular allegiances. Now it's electric. Trade is also much more volatile, a lot of abstention. So all that has made virtually that law, that iron law, first passed the post irrelevant. It doesn't work anymore. I suppose that PR is not as such a recipe to make things wonderful suddenly, but probably it's the Ferro system you can get, because at least parties, and I'm thinking here in the UK of the Green Party, for instance, there is a constituency for that party, clearly. But with the first past the post, it will be very difficult for the party to get, at the moment, even now, lots of seats. And that's deeply unfair. And that's probably one of the reasons why the electorate is disenfranchised also with politics thinking that a party which gets a significant number of votes gets in return a very small number of seats. And so PR and I think a fair. There are different versions of pr. We'll not get into the technicality of it here, but there are some which could probably address that kind of new situation, more fragmentation, the fact that people are less in line with parties. You know, before 50, 60 years ago, you could vote for the same party all your life and transmit that you, your children, that.
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A
Let's over just finally on this, Isabelle, we're talking about democratic dysfunction and fragmentation. Do Chinese Citizens, if not the government, look to Europe's parliamentary system, to the Americans with envy.
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B
At this point, it's a very good question. I mean, you may recall that at the end of the demonstrations in Tiananmen Square, just before the tanks went in, the art students had created a goddess of dub democracy, as they called it, which was a kind of. It was an effigy of the Statue of Liberty and dragged it in front of Tiananmen Gate. I can't imagine them doing that now. And it's partly because what the Chinese have or what the Communist Party has had is performative legitimacy. People can't vote, but as long as they were getting richer, it was okay. Their difficulty now is people are not getting richer, and it's not quite clear where the economy is going. So you are beginning to see more discontent. But again, I really, I'm not at all sure that even discontented young Chinese are looking to Western democracies at this point.
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A
Well, finally, for our panel, for a little bit of levity, as we always try to bring you on the monocle daily, who here watches the show? Totally Spies. Oh, my gosh.
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D
She'S bald.
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A
She's bald and she's torturing people who have hair. So it turns out amid all of the focus in the world on conflicts and affordability, South Korea's President Lee Jae Myung has identified the real scourge for society. And you guessed it from our introduction, there it is, hair loss. The fact that this comes from a politician without self interest, I have to say, is all the more refreshing. President Lee has a full head of hair. Isabel, where to start? There is a serious side to this in that President Lee has said that hair loss is a disease and wants health care to cover treatments. Is that fair?
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B
I think that's pretty weird. I mean, I'm probably the wrong gender to be discussing this kind of, you know, at heartbreaking length. But I should actually add at that.
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A
Point for our listeners that actually we all have a full head of hair in this room, so we're all the wrong people to be discussing.
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B
I want to know if he dyes his hair, because most Asian politicians male dye their hair. And in China, when you get done for corruption and you no longer have access to hair dye, your next court appearance, which is usually about nine months later, people have a shock of white hair. So that's the hair shock in China. But I think in South Korea, this is all a ploy. You know, South Korea, like most Asian societies, has a very rapidly aging population and falling birth rate. So I think they're just trying to pretend they're all much younger than they are.
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A
Philippe, I purposely went to Isabel so it wouldn't seem like I was, I don't know, doing favoritism or whatever. Focusing on certain people rather than others. What is your view on this? Would we, as the male species, enjoy a bit of coverage for hair loss treatment?
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C
I would say personally, as a man, that probably losing one's hair, particularly when you're young, is a bit traumatizing. I take that. But I read that the president of South Korea said in a TV show that thinning hair was for the young, was a matter of survival. I think that's a bit over the top. And probably instead of, you know, because he wants apparently to invest the public money into addressing that and helping people who are losing their hair, probably, I think that science should probably find once and for all the cure for baldness. We haven't got there yet, so we're getting there. Probably. I don't know, the state of research, it's traumatizing. Then if you start with that, how many other cosmetic issues will you have to address to satisfy the public? It's endless. I think in the meantime, lots of people, especially men, lose their hair while they grow old. I think that's a fact of life. It's a bit sad, but that's the way it is.
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A
It is a fact of life. Well, just finally for the two of you then, is there something else, Isabelle, that you would like to see? The government fund, cosmetic or otherwise, Something silly where you're just like, yeah, I know this is like a bit ridiculous, but I really like it.
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B
I'm a huge fan of South Korean theatre. I see it regularly at the Edinburgh Festival and it's brilliant. So I think instead of hair loss treatment, he should cheer up the population by just funding the arts.
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A
Funding the arts. Free things.
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C
I couldn't agree more. I fully back that. I second that.
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A
Yes, you've been given an out there. Unless you had something else to offer, Philippe.
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C
I think putting money in culture is always well spent.
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A
That is the way to go. What a nice ending. Philippe Marliere and Isabel Hilton, thank you very much for joining us. And finally on today's program, a stork, a struggling farmer and a vanishing way of life in rural North Macedonia. Or at the heart of the Tale of Siljan, a new National Geographic documentary from the Oscar nominated director, Tamara Kotevska. The film follows Nikola, a small scale farmer, and his bond with Cilian and an injured stork. It is essentially a modern day folk tale about the pressures of pastoral life that resonates far beyond the Balkans. And Monocle's Joanna Moser spoke to the director, Tamara Kotevska and began by asking her when she realized that Celian was a central character of the film.
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E
Cillian came really late in the story towards the second year of shooting when Nicola was working on the landfill and he captured the stork before that. The idea for this film was to make an environmental film about storks eating from landfills and comparison with how they usually eat on the human lands in symbiotes with the farmers. And as we were making this shooting, we met the farmers, we met Nicola and his family. And then after a process of casting between 10 families, I decided to work with Nicola and his family.
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D
The film is framed as a folktale. How did that idea come to mind to tell the story in that way?
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E
I've known this tale since I was a child. That was my first tale I've ever heard from my grandparents who are also farmers. I've been growing up with storks around me. I've been seeing storks on the fields in the village and just it's something that I was always connected to. I didn't think to use the tail until Nicola found the stork. And then it just made sense to use this tail.
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D
And for you, what would you say it's the central message of your film?
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E
Well, the central message to begin with is how much we forget that with our everyday actions in the contemporary modern living, we are a chain of reactions to many more species than just ourselves. So in this case, the farmers who are affected by the government and the issues that the government is creating in Macedonia actually affect everything around them and nature in its core.
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D
And now bit more on the visual style of your film. The picture is stunning. It's almost like a painting. What was the process behind the filming like?
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E
Well, it's been a very long process of about three years editing and filming in the same time. It's been just really magical process where some things we knew that they will happen and others we just were embracing the magic that we were.
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D
What was the biggest surprise?
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E
Well, the finding of the stork definitely was the biggest surprise. The fact that the storks eventually let us fly with them so close to them and be so close to their nests and their babies.
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D
How did you film them?
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E
We invested in some equipment for bird observation. Like drone that changes lenses amidst flight, Some tele lens that we could just observe the storks from a group. We just spent hours and hours and weeks and months with them, which was the key of the finest magical moments.
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D
Did you ever worry that the beauty of the film and the imagery might soften then the severity of the farmer's situation?
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E
No, absolutely not.
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D
How did you balance then the reality of the story and then the documentary side of it?
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E
Well, this is my craft as a director. I. I do this in every film. I love implementing the magic and the craft of filmmaking into the reality that we are living, because in the end of the day, it is a craft of its own, and I respect that craft of what kind of storyteller I am. And I think that films should not be journalism and they shouldn't be something like a news reportage. They should be films primarily to be able to reach wider audience. And films are something that holds visual beauty and that holds deep psychological observation of characters. And that's why we are so loving and attached to films.
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D
Would you say that then you had to be extra careful to not intrude into the personal life of the family that you portray in the film?
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E
Yes, we were careful of that.
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D
How did you manage that? How was that process?
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E
Well, we were living with the family in their house, in the room where the. Their kids used to live. They invited us to stay with them. And this created a very strong bond and excess, really.
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D
Some of the scenes feel very intimate. How did you manage then to capture that? Did you have to adjust anything in your approach on the way you film for the community then to really accept your presence there?
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E
Yeah, I mean, the approach is something that you constantly change by just kind of feeling intuitively where the situation is going. And when you need to be closer or more distant or leave space, be more energetic about approaching the protagonist. It's just you're balancing out throughout the shooting.
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D
Was there anything about the landscape that taught you or that made you film it differently?
- [36:46]
E
I mean, all of it was very difficult because it's external conditions that are completely uncontrolled. The ground is very, very difficult world to walk on with a camera. So that was an extra challenge for the cinematographer, Jean Dakar. Usually it was very muddy because it's just working land. So we had to be very careful about this. Also, the light was changing constantly, so nothing was really predictable. I mean, we did decide what kind of style we are going after, what kind of lenses we want to use. But other than that, everything else was completely unpredictable. And the fire is something we just captured. It was just happening and it was one of the riskiest scenes to be shot.
- [37:26]
D
And how do you think this very local story from rural Macedonia can speak to audiences all over the world? I mean, somewhere in Sao Paulo or in London or in Tokyo.
- [37:36]
E
There's two topics that really resonate, I think, with broad audience. First topic is the monopolization of basic human resources for surface survival, which is food and water, which is happening everywhere at the moment. There's protests throughout all Europe, Asia, America. It's happening everywhere. And this is something that people can resonate with because we all witness raising of prices of basic human resources in our countries. And the second is the connection with nature. That is something that will forever resonate with humans because they're part of nature. And regardless of how much they're living in big cities or distant from nature, when they see this kind of bond, like Nicola and Celion and Nikola and his land, they feel something that is maybe like buried deep inside from their ancestors, let's say from times that have passed. But it's somewhere within us, this connection with nature and it's part of us. So I think it's waking up something really ancient in us.
- [38:39]
A
That was the Oscar nominated director Tamara Kotevska speaking with Monocle's Joanna Moser about her latest documentary, the Tale of Cillian. The film will be available on Disney plus from this Friday. That is all for this edition of the Monocle Daily. A big thanks to my panelists today, Isabel Hilton and Philippe Marliere, for putting the world to rights. Today's show was produced by Monica Lillis and researched by Anneliese Maynard. Our sound engineer engineer was Elliot Greenfield. I'm Chris Chermack here in London. The Monocle Daily is back at the same time tomorrow. Goodbye and thanks for listening.