Interview: ‘You Won’t Be Alone’ Director Goran Stolevski on Gender and Macedonia

You Won’t Be Alone is the feature debut of writer/director Goran Stolevski. Set in 19^th-century Macedonia, a young witch curious about the experiences of humans inhabits a series of bodies and learns about the world around her. The film premiered in January at Sundance Film Festival with positive reception from attendees. In anticipation of its wider theatrical release on April 1^st, I sat down with Stolevski to discuss Macedonian culture, Honeyland, and the film’s approach to gender.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Joshua Goodstein: You’ve cited a lot of different material as inspiration for You Won’t Be Alone, and I was wondering if there were any films specifically from Macedonia that influenced how you wanted to approach the project from a narrative or aesthetic standpoint. I know you’ve cited folklore, so I wondered about the film.

Goran Stolevski: In terms of the folklore, I was mainly researching day-to-day life and rituals because when I was looking at the folktales that existed from the period, there’s just not a lot of them, and they’re not particularly inspiring. Especially if you’re not an aggressive straight dude. In terms of Macedonia itself and its cinematic output, I can tell you a lot of films that I definitely didn’t want this film to be like. Actually, one thing I can say is Honeyland came out shortly before we were filming. It was years after I’d written the script already, but I think it was a useful film to show people because most people don’t know of Macedonia, and we had a very international cast and crew. So it was useful to show that film, and Honeyland was also describing a way of life that existed for thousands of years and is about to go away. It was a very different way of life. It was a much drier, kind of harsher place in many ways. But still, that ethos existed, and this woman who is sort of unbreakable, it feels like very difficult circumstances and these young kids. One of my friends was actually on the crew, and I remember he was shooting a film around the time I was in Macedonia shooting my own, and he was kind of telling me about “Oh, I’m just making this documentary about bees” and like, oh, okay, right? And then it’s like, “What? This was it?” So that was inspiring; a bunch of young people got together and created this beautiful work. That was inspiring, and it’s rare that I find that, especially in that region.

JG: And was the genderfluid nature of Nevena inhabiting both female and male bodies present in the folklore, or was it something you brought to the screenplay?

GS: Not that I found. I didn’t set out consciously to play along those lines. I was just writing this personality. To me, a personality is an essence, you know? It transcends gender, and I don’t want to live my life according to gender limits anyway. The character came out, and I’m like, “If I’m in this position, what do I do? How do I live?” And then the story came out like that, and I think that kind of reflects my own mindset. I didn’t have an ambition to convey anything specific ideologically within the film, but it felt like my own ideology is always going to come out through the way I’m writing—if I’m writing from an honest, instinctive place. So that’s kind of how it came out. The way she lives through the story is the way I feel, essentially. And I did want it to be set in a place that felt real, and that time and place, and I don’t think it would have been very open, from all my research to anyone who was non-conforming in any way—gender or otherwise. So I thought, “Okay, you’re in this essence, and this soul that wants to live life to the fullest and not have these barriers that you realize are arbitrary around you. How do you negotiate that? But in terms of how I was writing that, it was always from a place of feeling. And then, if I have these feelings, how do they interact with these barriers around me? And how do I work through them or around them?

JG: That’s great! Thank you so much for your time.

GS: Thank you! Lovely to meet you.

JG: You too!