Director: Estibaliz Urresola Solaguren

Stars: Sofia Otero, Patricia López Arnaiz, Itziar Lazkano, Ane Gabarain

The title presumably a nod to the child-themed classic ‘Spirit of the Beehive’, this impressive feature debut from Spanish writer-director Estibaliz Urresola Solaguren is a lyrical and slow-burning but compelling and all-too timely exploration of gender identity and family relations. It opens with struggling sculptor Ane (Arnaiz) leaving Bayonne and her bad-tempered husband to visit her mother (Lazkano) in rural Basque Country Spain for a working holiday. Accompanying her are her three children. The youngest Aitor (Otero) is an eight-year-old boy who identifies as a girl ‘Coco’. Ane’s mother lives in a very small village where everyone knows everyone else’s business, so Aitor/Coco’s insistence that they are a girl, as well as Coco’s presence in the girls’ changing rooms at the local pool, raises questions, concerns and outright derision. Character exchanges captured via hand-held camera exhibit an immediate social realist feel, but Gina Ferrer García’s warm photography also summons up a languid summer vibe, while Solaguren’s script is complex and commendably even-handed. Eight-year-old Sofia Otero is the real draw here, turning in an extraordinarily layered and entirely convincing portrayal of a child exploring their identity.

David Willoughby

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