5 Nanomoles: the documentary about Valentina Petrillo and the Paralympic dream

On June 17, 2023, at the Biografilm Festival in Bologna (Italy), a documentary was screened for the first time that tells one of the most extraordinary sporting and human stories of contemporary Italy [2]. It is titled “5 nanomoli — il sogno olimpico di Valentina” (5 Nanomoles — Valentina’s Olympic Dream), runs 79 minutes, and was directed by Elisa Mereghetti and Marco Mensa [1][7]. The story it tells is that of Valentina Petrillo: Paralympic athlete, trans woman, visually impaired, Neapolitan, mother, and the first transgender person to compete at the Paralympic Games in the history of sport [6].

The title is not a coincidence. Five nanomoles per liter is the maximum blood testosterone concentration that the International Olympic Committee has established as the threshold for allowing transgender female athletes to compete in women’s categories [5]. A small number — five billionths of a mole per liter — that for Valentina Petrillo represents the boundary between being able to pursue the dream of a lifetime and being excluded from it forever.

Who is Valentina Petrillo

To understand the documentary, it is necessary to know the protagonist. Valentina Petrillo was born in Naples in 1973 [3]. From childhood she loved running, inspired by the feats of Pietro Mennea (one of Italy’s most celebrated sprinters), but at 14 she was diagnosed with Stargardt disease, a retinal degeneration that causes progressive vision loss [3]. Despite her visual impairment, Valentina never stopped running: first in the men’s category, where she won 11 national Paralympic titles, and then — after beginning her gender transition in 2019, at age 46 — in the women’s category, where she accumulated 27 national titles and two bronze medals at the 2023 Paralympic World Championships [3].

Valentina’s story is that of a person who lived for decades with a double secret: progressive vision loss and a gender identity that did not match the one assigned at birth. The documentary interweaves these two dimensions, showing how running was simultaneously an escape, a therapy, and a way of affirming who she truly is.

The documentary synopsis

5 Nanomoles is not a sports documentary in the traditional sense. Of course, there are tracks, training sessions, and stopwatches. But the heart of the film lies elsewhere: in Valentina’s intimate conversations with her family, in moments of vulnerability before the camera, in the complexity of a life that defies ordinary categories [1].

The documentary follows Valentina in the months of preparation for qualifying for the Paris 2024 Paralympic Games. The camera accompanies her to the gym, on the track, in the medical offices where she undergoes hormonal checks certifying that her testosterone levels are below the five-nanomole threshold. But it also accompanies her at home, where the everyday life of a woman who is a mother (her son Lorenzo affectionately calls her “papi”), an ex-wife, a daughter, and a sister emerges.

The directors build a narrative that proceeds on multiple temporal levels. The present — training, preparation, waiting — alternates with memories of childhood in Naples, the discovery of her illness, the decades spent living with an identity that did not feel like her own. Valentina recounts seeing, as a child, her uncle throw a transgender cousin out of the house: a scene that stayed with her for decades and contributed to delaying her decision to begin transitioning.

A recurring thread in the documentary is Valentina’s relationship with the world around her: teammates, coaches, journalists, the public. Some reactions are welcoming, others hostile, many simply curious. The film does not hide the controversy surrounding her presence in women’s competitions, but it chooses not to make the debate its center: at the center is Valentina, her humanity, her dream.

The meaning of the title

The number five nanomoles is much more than a scientific datum. In the documentary, it becomes a symbol charged with meaning.

On one hand, it represents institutional sports’ attempt to find a balance between inclusion and competitiveness. The limit of 5 nanomoles per liter of testosterone, established by the IOC in its 2021 Framework on Fairness, Inclusion and Non-Discrimination, is the result of years of scientific and political debate on how to manage the participation of transgender athletes in sports [5].

On the other hand, the number represents the reduction of a person to a biochemical parameter. The documentary shows how Valentina must undergo regular checks to demonstrate that her body falls within the established parameters. Her identity as a woman and an athlete is constantly subordinated to a number. No cisgender athlete must demonstrate, through repeated blood tests, the right to compete in their category. For Valentina, this demonstration is a permanent obligation.

This tension — between the need for rules and the reduction of the human to the measurable — runs through the entire documentary and constitutes one of its deepest reflections.

The directors: Elisa Mereghetti and Marco Mensa

The documentary was directed by Elisa Mereghetti and Marco Mensa, Italian documentarians with extensive experience in telling complex human stories [7]. The two directors worked closely with Valentina for months, building a relationship of trust that is reflected in the quality of the film’s most intimate scenes.

The choice of Mereghetti and Mensa proved particularly fortunate. The two directors do not take a sensationalist approach: they do not chase scoops, pursue controversy, or spectacularize Valentina’s body. Their gaze is respectful, attentive, and curious. They let Valentina tell her own story, intervening with discretion in the narrative construction without ever overshadowing the protagonist.

Accessibility: a film for everyone

A particularly significant aspect of 5 Nanomoles is its commitment to accessibility. The documentary was produced in accessible versions for deaf viewers, with subtitles, and for blind viewers, with audio description [1]. This is not a detail: it is a choice that reflects the protagonist’s own identity.

Valentina Petrillo is a visually impaired Paralympic athlete. Her visual disability is an integral part of her story and her identity. Making the documentary accessible to communities with sensory disabilities means recognizing that Valentina’s story belongs to these communities too, and that a film about inclusion must practice inclusion in its own distribution.

This attention to accessibility is rare in the Italian and European documentary landscape, and it deserves to be noted as an example of coherence between a work’s message and its practical realization.

The festival circuit

After its world premiere at the Biografilm Festival in Bologna in June 2023 [2], 5 Nanomoles had a significant run on the national and international festival circuit. The film was selected and screened at numerous film festivals, eliciting intense emotional reactions from audiences and fueling constructive debate about the presence of transgender people in sports.

Screenings were often followed by discussions with the audience, sometimes with Valentina Petrillo herself participating. These moments of dialogue demonstrated the documentary’s ability to go beyond mere viewing: 5 Nanomoles is a film that provokes conversations, pushes viewers to confront their own prejudices, and opens spaces for dialogue where there was previously only polarization.

The context: sports and transgender people

The documentary is situated within an international debate that has taken on increasingly heated tones in recent years. The question of transgender athletes’ participation in women’s sports competitions has become one of the most controversial topics in the world of sports and politics.

On one hand, there are concerns about competitiveness: some voices argue that trans women who went through male puberty may retain physical advantages even after hormone therapy, such as greater bone density or more developed muscle structure. On the other hand, there is scientific evidence showing that hormone therapy significantly reduces many of these parameters within a few years, and the ethical principle that no person should be excluded from sport because of their gender identity.

5 Nanomoles does not offer definitive answers to this debate — and it does not claim to. But it offers something perhaps more important: a face, a story, a humanity. When the debate about trans athletes is reduced to numbers, parameters, and regulations, it is easy to forget that behind every case is a person with a life, dreams, and relationships. Valentina Petrillo, in the documentary, is first and foremost a person. And the film asks the viewer to see her as such.

After the documentary: the Paris 2024 Paralympics

The documentary was filmed before the Paralympics, but the story it tells reached its culmination in September 2024, when Valentina Petrillo actually became the first trans woman to compete at the Paralympic Games [4][6].

On September 2, 2024, she competed in the 400 meters T12, setting her personal record with 57.58 seconds, without qualifying for the final [6]. On September 6, she competed in the 200 meters, finishing in ninth place [6]. She did not win medals, but her participation represented a historic moment that goes far beyond placements.

Those who had seen the documentary could experience Valentina’s participation in the Paralympics with a different awareness: not as a “sports controversy” but as the fulfillment of a dream that the film had told in its genesis, its obstacles, its fears. The documentary gave depth and context to an event that otherwise risked being reduced to polarized headlines.

Why watch 5 Nanomoles

5 Nanomoles is a documentary that deserves to be seen for several reasons. It is a human portrait of rare sensitivity, telling a complex story without simplifying it. It is a historical document capturing a moment of transition — in every sense — in Italian society and international sport. It is a work that practices inclusion in its very form, through its accessible versions [1].

But above all, it is a film that reminds us of a fundamental truth: behind every political debate, behind every sports regulation, behind every number — even one as small as five nanomoles — there are real people. People who run, who love, who are afraid, who dream.

As Valentina said after the semifinal at the Paris Paralympics: “There is a lot of fear and I embody these differences. It bothers me that people are afraid of me. I do not hurt anyone.” The documentary shows exactly this: a person who hurts no one, who just wants to run, and who in doing so has changed the history of sport.

For those who want to explore Valentina Petrillo’s story further, the documentary is complemented by the autobiography Piu veloce del tempo (Faster Than Time, 2025), written with Claudio Arrigoni and Ilaria Leccardi for the publisher Capovolte. Together, these two works offer the most complete portrait available of one of the most significant figures in the recent history of sports and transgender people and of the trans situation in Italy.