Gariza Films, Inicia Films
MOVIE REVIEW
20,000 Species of Bees (2023)
“20,000 Species of Bees” is about an 8-year-old child coming to the realization that they are not the gender assigned to them at birth, and whether or not the child’s family will be able to accept and adjust to this news. As the child, Sofía Otero, who is 8 herself, has just won the gender-neutral Silver Bear for Best Actor prize at this year’s Berlinale. This is an achievement on par with Quvenzhané Wallis’s Best Actress nomination for “Beasts of the Southern Wild” at the age of 6. But a film about a child whose gender identity is being questioned is such a hot-button topic that first-time writer/director Estibaliz Urresola Solaguren had 20,000 different ways to mess this up. It’s delightful to report that none of them happened.