Press Conference with the Crew of SKATING IS NOT FOR GIRLS: Women in the Balkans Are Brave

Three years after presenting her new film SKATING IS NOT FOR GIRLS at the CineLink programme of the Sarajevo Film Festival, Macedonian director Dina Duma has returned to Sarajevo. The film will have its European premiere tonight at the National Theatre as part of the Competition Programme – Narrative Feature Film, following its world premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York.

At the centre of the story is Zara, a girl from a Roma family whose mother Esma, faced with financial difficulties, decides to sell her to a wealthy family as a bride. Through Zara’s story, Duma explores the position of women in a patriarchal society, as well as the value placed on women’s bodies.

The idea for the film came from a situation the director witnessed in real life. “One day I saw a girl in traditional dress riding a skateboard in Skopje. That image stayed with me for more than a year. That’s when I realised I had to make a film out of it,” Duma said.

SKATING IS NOT FOR GIRLS simultaneously explores the vulnerability of a young girl and the position of Roma girls in society. When Zara tells her mother that she has lost her virginity, the question of her body also becomes a question of her “value” within her community and a patriarchal system.

Producer Labina Mitevska stressed that this is precisely why it is important that women’s voices and stories that have long remained marginalized are currently gaining prominence in regional cinema. “Women in the Balkans are brave and they are not afraid to talk about the taboo subjects of our region,” Mitevska said.

Speaking about the phenomenon of the “bride market”, Mitevska noted that it is difficult to believe that such practices still exist, particularly in the European context. “We close our eyes to this. We have to talk about it,” she said.

Given the size of the Roma community in North Macedonia, Duma wanted to avoid the simplified images and stereotypes about Roma people that are often present in regional cinema. Bosnian-Roma actress Simonida Selimović was involved in the script development process, working with the director to find a way for the story to be told from within rather than simply observed from the outside.

“It was important to me that she understood the way I wanted to tell this story, but also that she approved of it. In the end, Simonida brought so much of her own life experience into the script,” Duma said.

Selimović, who grew up in Vienna and whose father is originally from Tuzla, stressed that the Roma community is by no means homogeneous. “There are 24 million people of Roma origin in the world. That means we are anything but a homogeneous group,” she said, adding that Duma’s film does not attempt to speak about “the Roma” as a single community, but about a specific experience. For Selimović, this approach was crucial: “She didn’t want to make a film about Roma people, but together with Roma people.”

SKATING IS NOT FOR GIRLS is an international co-production between North Macedonia, Belgium, Slovenia and Croatia.