A transsexual girl on vacation in the village, determined to leave behind the child she once was, awakens in her family members different perspectives on transsexuality, in the delicate Spanish film 20,000 species of bees, by the Basque filmmaker Estibaliz Urresola Solaguren, which premiered yesterday In Berlin. This choral story of transit and search for the girl and her family competes with 17 other films for the Golden Bear for best film in this 73rd edition of La Berlinale, the veteran international film festival in the German capital .
"My desire has been to contribute something from my field of work, which is cinema, to the task of bringing positions that are apparently very distant closer together," the director explained at a press conference. “I have had the privilege of listening to families with children who were going through this reality and who offered me their experiences.”
The film recounts the inner experience, with its struggles and fears, of Aitor –an eight-year-old boy played by child actress Sofía Otero–, who cannot hide his uneasiness when he is still called by that name or by the most neutral of names. Cocó, a family nickname. He wants to be Lucía now. In a transcript of the doubts and positions that accompany the debate in society about child transsexuality, the artist mother (Patricia López Arnaiz) embodies the acceptance of the transit of her offspring, while the father (Martxelo Rubio) considers that eight years are few so that Aitor gives way to Lucía. For the mother, "all this means also living her own internal revolution, because in the end it is still a journey of identity, of deciding what your name is, not being called by the look of another, by how others have decided to call you ; that also happens to the mother who is the protagonist as a person”, argued López Arnaiz.
Two other voices that contribute their gaze to the painting during the short family summer vacation in a small Basque town: the practicing Catholic grandmother (Itziar Lazkano) and a beekeeper aunt (Ane Gabarain), who with the 20,000 species of bees opens her eyes to multiple diversities. A logic unites all positions: the loving look towards Cocó. The girl who gives life to it, Sofía Otero, sat yesterday, delighted and happy, in the press room while the older people of the project –a world of women– explained details.
“I like working with young leading actors and actresses; I think that at that moment in life is where many of the internal psychological programs that will condition us in adulthood are configured," said Estibaliz Urresola Solaguren, director and screenwriter of a project that began to take shape in 2018. "In that childish gaze we can also understand a lot about ourselves as adults, and the biggest challenge was to preserve its naturalness and at the same time make sure that the script was being executed”. This is the debut feature film by Urresola Solaguren, 38, author of shorts such as Strings (2022) or the recent Polvo somos – a Goya candidate – and the 2016 documentary Voces de papel.
The film –spoken in Spanish, Basque and French– garnered applause at the screening for the specialized press. However, the temporary proximity of the Golden Bear of the Berlinale'2022 for Alcarràs, by the Catalan director Carla Simón, suggests that it would be difficult to repeat the Spanish victory. Simón is part of the international jury that, chaired by the American actress Kristen Stewart, will decide on Saturday the award for best film and the Silver Bears in the different categories.
