20,000 SPECIES OF BEES

“How come everyone knows who they are and I don’t?”

During a summer in the Basque Country among the beehives, an eight-year-old child explores his identity alongside the women of his family, who at the same time reflect on the multi-layered complexities of their own lives.  Family traumas start to roll out of the closet while the mother fully accepts her young child’s transformation and also sees it as a stand against an intolerant world.  

This richly textured chronicle of an 8-year-old’s gradual transitioning, and the effect it has on a family, is ultimately about tolerance and acceptance as much as it is a fascinating study of womanhood that extends beyond motherhood.

At the film’s 2023 Berlinale premiere the young and endearing Sofia Otero won the Silver Bear for Best Leading Performance at the festival, while the film itself received the Prize of the Guild of German Art House Cinemas, and the Berliner Morgenpost Reader’s Jury Award.

Carried by impressively fluid, naturalistic filmmaking, with performances that never hit a false note, this compassionate coming-of-ager marks an assured debut for Estibaliz Urresola Solaguren, and young Sofia Otero.
Jordan Mintzer, Hollywood Reporter

Solaguren’s focus is on showing how a child learns to accept herself, and in so doing hope that her family and friends are able to do the same. It’s a lovely movie, which stands entirely on Ms. Otero’s small shoulders.
Sarah Manvel, Critic’s Notebook

Solaguren raises awareness about hot-button socially thorny issues, including parental dilemmas and doubts, and she achieves it through an utterly human and immersive story that avoids the pitfalls of lecturing and didacticism.  
Martin Kudlac, Screen Anarchy

One of the most sensitive, honest, and easily recollectable on-screen portrayals of gender dysphoria and growing up trans.
Mattie Lucas, In Review Online

An engaging, authentic, moving film about the way society persists in seeing monsters where there are none.   
Lee Marshall, Screen Daily