She wants to be called Cocó, although it is a provisional name, because she is looking for hers, the definitive one at the same time that she tries to find herself. A summer with her mother, her brothers, her grandmother and, above all, a beekeeper aunt will be the moment for the young protagonist of 20,000 species of bees to find her true identity. The film by Estibaliz Urresola Solaguren about a trans girl, who has already passed through the Berlinale, starts as a favorite to win the Biznaga de Oro at the Malaga Festival whose jury, chaired by Manuel Gutiérrez Aragón, will announce the list of winners tomorrow.
Going through Berlin is beginning to be a guarantee of success in the Malaga event. Last year and recently arrived from the German capital, Cinco lobitos, by Alauda Ruiz de Azúa, won the main prize. In this edition, in addition to 20,000 species of bees, it sounds like one of the big prizes Matria, by Álvaro Gago, a social drama that addresses the reality of a woman to raise her daughter.
Although there are other films that have also been highly applauded by the public such as Las buenas compañías, directed by Sílvia Munt, which narrates the struggle to obtain an abortion law for a group of women from Rentería in 1977 or A not so simple life, by Félix Viscarret, who delves into the crisis of his 40s suffered by a promising architect who is plagued by day-to-day life with children, the difficulty in developing his work projects and the wear and tear of his relationship.
That architect in low hours is embodied by Miki Esparbé, who is one of the candidates to win the award for best male performance. And it would not be strange that Álex García, who gives life to his partner, single and childless, but no less concerned than his colleague in his case due to the lack of a stable partner, would take the Biznaga de Plata to the interpretation cast male. The solvency of the performances of Viscarret's film can be overshadowed by Darío Grandinetti, who becomes an old tango player in Empieza el baile, by Marina Seresesky, and Manolo Solo, for his role as a pedophile in La Desconocida, by Pablo Maqueda.
The competition between actresses is much tighter, because this year there are very good roles for women. María Vázquez gives life to Ramona in Matria and has almost all the tickets to win the Biznaga de Plata for best performance. An award that the girl Sofía Otero already snatched from her in Berlin for her role in 20,000 species of bees. That could happen again, but the jury has a difficult time, as they will also have to assess the work of Laia Costa, who becomes a mother who suffers the first separation from her daughter after the divorce in Els encantats, the new film by Elena I trap.
She also loses her son, but in this case in a literal and distressing way, Antonia Zegers, star of the Chilean film El castiño, by Matías Bize. Zegers' work may attract the attention of the jury, which will also have a difficult time awarding the award for best Ibero-American film, because it has been a year of good harvest for Latin cinema. Panamanian Kattia González has presented Las hijas, the story of two teenage sisters who travel from Chile to Panama to meet her father again.
And Eustacio Ascacio leaves his hometown in the interior of Mexico to move to the capital in search of the body of his daughter who died in an accident in the disturbing Red Shoes, by Carlos Eichelmann Kaiser. And the Brazilian Saudade fez morada aqui dentro, directed by Haroldo Borges, which won the award for best film at the Mar del Plata Festival, also has something to say. The film narrates how a teenager who lives in a small town in the interior of the country deals with blindness.
