20,000 Species of Bees

Eight-year-old Cocó spends the summer at his maternal grandmother's house. There he does not fit in with the expectations of the rest and he does not understand why. Everyone around her insists on calling, but her but she does not recognize herself in that name or in the eyes of others. During that summer, not only does Cocó experience a transition, but also her disoriented mother and her conservating grandmother.

Winner of the Goya for best novel direction, original screenplay and supporting actress, this film '20.000 especies de abejas' is a luminous, realistic, moving portrait about the search for identity of an 8-year-old trans girl in which young actress Sofía Otero made history at the Berlinale in 2023, becoming the second youngest actress to win the Silver Bear for best performance. Here three women from three different generations face the doubts, fears and renunciations of the past. The story seems very long and at some moments boredom attacks and only thing that keeps some interest is the well-intentioned performances from Patricia López Arnaizi, an actress who never fails, the little Sofía Otero and Ane Gabaraín.

This tiring film belongs to a recent trend in Spanish cinema of making almost documentary films, made on low budgets, and dealing mostly with rural stories, or a few urban ones, and in which the lives of a few characters or families inserted in these environments are described . These films in which hardly anything happens are usually overlong and very heavy and dull, such as: "Verano 1993", "Las niñas", ¨Secaderos¨,¨O corno¨, "Libertad" and most of them made by women directors, and whose main representive is Carla Simón. All of them heavily financed by the national government, autonomous governments, ICAA, which is not understood as these films made in documentary style, with a camera over the shoulder and with minimal budgets, with no known actors, neither technicians, need so much public financing and state subsidies. This ¨20,000 especies de abejas¨ is no exception, which also turned out to be a tiresome film, with hardly any incidents, with simply contemplative scenes or meaningless and inconsequential conversations and mostly in Basque language.

The film was mediocrely directed by Estibaliz Urresola Solaguren , saving only the performances, and the observation of the work of raising bees, and the work of the starring in the workshop, otherwise all of this is heavy, and tremendously boring. Rating: 3.5/10.