‘Skateboarding Is Not For Girls’ Revolts Against Arranged Marriages — Tribeca 2026

Skateboarding Is Not For Girls is not a sports movie, but the sport it chose to carry its theme illustrates the changing times. Skateboarding is defiant, dangerous, and unpredictable. If you skate, you will fall, your body will hurt, and you will pick yourself up to do it again, over and over. It’s a brave way to face the world. Director Dina Duma uses that bravery to set the scene in her gripping and grounded second feature. 

Esma (Simonida Selimovič) is a mother left struggling to raise her two daughters, Adela and Zara, alone as her husband is out of the country for work. After six months of not paying rent or bills, the Macedonian family is in danger of eviction. At school, Adela (Efekjar Abaz) does not fit in. Already at 11 years old, she is subjected to racist slurs from classmates and fights with boys. Coupled with her penchant for skating, Adela holds a gruff exterior. Her sister Zara (Džefrina Jashari) is secretly dating behind her mother’s back. Though different, our three protagonists all hold a strong familial bond as they clean wealthy family houses together to earn whatever little money they can. 

Even with a college degree, Esma can’t earn a stable living. When there are no more houses to clean or personal possessions to sell, and the husband becomes officially estranged, her sister-in-law, Aida (Ganimet Abdula), suggests marrying Zara off for a hefty fee. One of the more stunning sentences uttered is “Are you ready to pay the price?” as Zara is paraded before a potential new family, as if women and young girls were a commodity to be bought and sold like cattle to the highest bidder. 

Not to be defeated, Adela strives to find a way to block the arranged marriage. There is an upcoming skateboarding contest, and Adela believes winning can save the family. Her friend’s father is a videographer recording local weddings, and she tries to get work with him through obvious lies. That’s a heavy burden for an 11-year-old to carry.

As a director, Duma crafts her story in the vein of Sophia Coppola. There are many shots of sad girls in beautiful gowns to drive home the emotional weight of just how much society is failing these young women. Like Coppola, Duma knows any shiny veneer of opulence only masks the hurt within. Young girls talk about how being lucky in an arranged marriage is not being married to an older man. A movie like this in the wrong hands, similar to a show like Euphoria, the melodrama is maximized to the point of exhaustion. But Duma keeps the proceedings even keel as the story balances the ills of patriarchy and poverty.

There is something about the character Esma that is devastating and serves as a silent warning to her daughters. She dons a black leather biker jacket, possibly symbolizing her once rebellious past. But the adult that she grew into became ensnared with a husband who would abandon his family and a cycle of destitution. Emma’s eyes hold a deep hurt and a long-extinguished glimmer. When she makes the decision to initially marry Zara off, you not only feel her hurt but the hurt of other mothers for generations that had to make that same sacrifice. Your heart breaks as you hope that someone or something, a miracle, will intervene. 

Without spoiling its ending, Skateboarding Is Not For Girls does make a brave choice by the end. One of the characters suddenly and subtly decides to take their lives into their own hands, thus changing their trajectory of any antiquated version of themselves they were destined to be. The next generation should know the future is uncertain, and destiny is in their hands, but it is up to them to change it. It is ok to fall, but it is more important to pick yourself back up.