The Spirit of the Beehive

Six-year-old Ana is shy and observant, living in a secluded manor with her parents. Her vivid imagination blends cinema and reality, turning Frankenstein's monster into a near-real presence. She is compassionate, curious, and prone to believing in a world where spirits can be spoken to.

Ana and Isabel's father tends his beehives with a quiet intensity and writes about them. He is protective, perceptive, and trying to keep his family safe in a village under postwar scrutiny. His stern exterior hides a deep concern for his daughters’ welfare.

Ana and Isabel's mother is dreamy and distracted, writing letters to a distant lover. She embodies longing and a fragile hope, existing in a private world while the war's aftermath constrains family life.

Isabel is the older sister who loves Ana but toys with her gullibility. She offers a skeptical voice—claiming films are fake—while guiding Ana through the uneasy border between imagination and danger.

A wounded Republican soldier is discovered by Ana and hidden in the sheepfold. His presence activates suspicion in the village and sets in motion the conflicts that tether the father's fate to the girl's choices.

The village doctor treats Ana's aftermath with calm professionalism, providing a clinical reading of her trauma and adding a sense of fragile normalcy to the crisis.

The monster from the visiting film embodies Ana's curiosity and fear. Its silent, muffled presence haunts her as she searches for a bridge between fiction and reality.

A village matron who embodies the older order and its gaze over the community. Her presence underscores the social control and judgment operating in the postwar setting.