Rating: Not Rated
Stars: Sofía Otero, Patricia López Arnaiz, Ane Gabarain, Itziar Lazkano, Martxelo Rubio, Sara Cózar, Miguel Garcés, Unax Hayden, Andere Garabieta Oribe
Writer: Estibaliz Urresola Solaguren
Director: Estibaliz Urresola Solaguren
Distributor: Film Movement
Release Date: June 14, 2024

Many transgender people from all over the world say they have known from early childhood that their gender identities do not correspond to what was assigned to them at birth.

Until now, though, the transgender experience in narrative film has been explored with teen and adult characters. 20,000 SPECIES OF BEES (20,000 ESPECIES DE ABEJAS) introduces us to an eight-year-old child, played by the exemplary Sofía Otero (who won the Best Leading Performance award at the 2023 Berlin Film Festival), who knows she is a girl but not how to express this verbally to others.

Called Cocó, which she hates, but tolerates better than her birth name of Aitor, our young protagonist is part of a Spanish family living in France. Her mother Ane (Patricia López Arnaiz) takes Cocó, Cocó’s slightly older brother Eneko (Unax Hayden), and adolescent sister Nerea (Andere Garabieta Oribe) to spend the summer in the Basque countryside village where Ane was raised. Dad Gorka (Martxelo Rubio) stays behind in the city.

Ane’s mother Lita (Itziar Lazkano) and Aunt Lourdes (Ane Garabain) still live here, as well as Ane’s cousin Leire (Sara Cózar), whose infant son is due to be baptized. There is plenty of tension between Ane and Litam regarding Ane’s art, her father’s legacy, and more.

Ane is trying to raise her children to believe that nothing is appropriate or inappropriate for only one gender. So, she’s fine with Cocó having long hair and painting her nails blue, but at the same time is slow to parse the difference between a boy liking these things and a child who identifies as a girl. Ane takes it in stride when people see Cocó as a little girl, while Lita insists that this is due to overindulgence.

Meanwhile, Cocó is desperate to be accepted – by Ane, most of all – as a girl, but lacks the ability to articulate this need. “Auntie” Lourdes, a lifelong beekeeper, thinks that dealing with the hives and their inhabitants may help calm the troubled child. Less stressed out than the other adults, Lourdes is better at noticing details of her grandniece’s reasoning and life.

Writer/director Estibaliz Urresola Solaguren handles both her child and adult performers with great sensitivity, eliciting absolute naturalism from everyone. She also has made the wide choice to set the film primarily in peaceful settings, giving time and space for the characters to think and feel.

The pacing is measured but always vital, because Cocó is eight years old, an age when (for most people) every single small gesture registers like an earthquake. It takes Ane ages to find out from Cocó why a seemingly innocuous comment from her got a despondent, infuriated response. Cocó examines every statement, every interaction, every phase of someone else’s being for clues as to why she was not born a girl and what she ought to do.

20,000 SPECIES OF BEES is a warmly empathetic view of both a trans child and her surrounding family. The film is immersive, and while it is very particular in its depiction of singular people, we come away feeling like we’ve perhaps learned something valuable.

In Spanish and French, with English subtitles.

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Article: Movie Review:20,000 SPECIES OF BEES (20,000 ESPECIES DE ABEJAS)

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