Skater Girl and Silver Skates: Why these skating dramas are a must watch

This month, Netflix is dropping two sports dramas, Skater Girl and Silver Skates, that revolve around skateboarding and ice-skating, respectively. While both sports have a niche following in India, movies of the genre such as Dogtown and Z-Boys and I, Tonya have made for some entertaining watch and the upcoming films promise the same.

The Indian audience would be keen to watch Skater Girl, a sports drama that is directed by Manjari Makijany and tells the story of a teenage girl from Rajasthan who discovers skateboarding after a British-Indian introduces the sport to her village.

The film has a host of children in the lead roles including Rachel Sanchita Gupta who plays the role of Prerna. The movie is reportedly inspired by a viral video of children skateboarding in a village in Madhya Pradesh. The trailer of the film also takes jabs at casteism and sexism through its characters, while largely focusing on the path of freedom that skateboards take them to.  

Skater Girl was also the reason that the village of Khempur is now host to India’s largest skateboard park that was built by the production team to shoot the movie. The film, which also stars Shraddha Gaikwad and Amrit Maghera, is set to release on June 11 on Netflix.

While Skater Girl is a coming-of-age tale set in India, Silver Skates is a more of a romcom that evolves on the frozen rivers and canals of St Petersburg in Russia. Ice-skating has a huge role to play in the movie that revolves around a petty thief who falls in love with an aristocrat’s daughter.

Though it focuses on romance and adventure, Silver Skates also addresses the issues of class divide. The film, which was among the highest grossers in Russia last year, is also the first Russian movie to be released as a Netflix Original.

Silver Skates, which stars Fedov Fedotov and Sophia Priss, will be available for streaming on Netflix from June 16.