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Keeping the Bees

Name: Keeping the Bees
Director: Eylem Kaftan
Released: 2019
Duration: 93 min

Representation Score

5.2/10

Fair

2019

Director

Eylem Kaftan

Runtime

93 minutes

Average Rating

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New Showbiz Analysis

Keeping the Bees offers a grounded, character-driven look at the tension between modern life and rural tradition. By centering on a female protagonist navigating a traditionally male-dominated field, the film provides a meaningful challenge to gendered labor expectations. While the film excels in its regional specificity and strong women's ability to drive the story, it lacks representation in other key areas, such as LGBTQ+ or disability-related storylines. Ultimately, the film serves as a nuanced alternative to Western-centric clichés by prioritizing local identity and the reclamation of ancestral skills.

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Category Breakdown

Does Keeping the Bees have LGBTQ+ representation?

Limited

The film focuses on maternal bonds and heritage, with no visible LGBTQ+ characters or non-straight relationships.

How does Keeping the Bees portray gender?

Good

Ayşe takes on a traditionally male-dominated role in beekeeping, emphasizing her professional competence and active role in driving the story.

How racially and ethnically diverse is Keeping the Bees?

Fair

Set in northeastern Turkey, the film highlights a culturally specific, non-Western setting that focuses on regional identity rather than explicit interracial dynamics.

How does Keeping the Bees represent religion and culture?

Fair

The story explores the tension between modern urbanity and traditional ancestral knowledge, highlighting the value of local customs and regional ecosystems.

Does Keeping the Bees include disability representation?

Minimal

There is no information available regarding characters with visible or invisible disabilities.

Present on Screen

Strong women's ability to drive the story through a protagonist managing a traditionally male-dominated profession.
Authentic regional setting that provides a non-Western perspective on cultural identity.
Nuanced exploration of the divide between urban modernity and traditional rural knowledge.

Limited or Absent

Lack of visible LGBTQ+ representation or non-straight relationships.
Absence of characters representing diverse physical or neurodivergent abilities.
Limited exploration of themes beyond traditional familial and regional structures.

Official Synopsis

Ayşe returns to her hometown in northeastern Turkey to nurse her gravely ill mother. Before she dies, Ayse’s mother tells her that she will leave Ayse her much loved bee hives to manage. Ayse’s modern life has moved her away from the mountains of her childhood – a life in which the bees and their honey were central. But she puts her city life on hold to manage the bees, which provide a distraction from her grief. Ayse slowly starts to work with the local bee keeper to manage the hives but finds the lessons of her childhood are buried deep and the hives are more difficult to manage than she remembers. Ayse’s failure to pay needful attention to local advice sees her mothers bee hives seriously damaged, if not lost forever. What’s more a Caucasian bear becomes a real threat to her hives and her life.

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