TO THE OTHER SIDE

Preparing for a competition, fearing an injury and facing a difficulty that extends beyond the rink: TO THE OTHER SIDE follows Tanya, a champion artistic roller skater accustomed to pursuing perfection. Written and directed by Federico Trento, the Italian short combines fictional sports drama with the musical form. Asya Sofia Testoni plays the protagonist, with Filippo Cataldo and Aisling Lenti also in the cast.

At home, during preparations and backstage, Tanya moves through conversations in which she struggles to express what is happening to her. The approaching competition brings specific demands: training, maintaining control and avoiding mistakes. Alongside these demands is a personal crisis that the film addresses through the body, relationships and the distance between the protagonist's outward behaviour and her inner experience.

The shift into musical changes the form of the storytelling. On a rink lit with coloured lights, song and choreography sit alongside dialogue; Tanya also moves with a group. Skating becomes part of the narrative, with gestures and figures carrying the conflict into the performance space. The original music is by Nerovivo and Carola Vettorello.

In his director's notes, Trento explains that he began with the separation between the outside world and inner experience. He describes balancing on skates as a reference for exploring emotional equilibrium, and assigns editing, cinematography and sound the task of distinguishing the different planes of the story. These choices relate to a filmmaker who combines his work in cinema with competitive artistic roller skating. A Cinema Engineering graduate of the Polytechnic University of Turin, Trento is president of MirLess APS.

The short is produced by MirLess APS itself, a Piedmont-based cultural association founded in 2019 and working across cinema, culture and sport, and is distributed by Tersite Film. Cinematography is by Federico Calzolari and editing by Lorenzo Renna. In this production, the director's own sporting discipline meets fiction and sung performance: Tanya's story takes shape both in everyday scenes and in sequences on the rink.