Fragments of Ice

Personal, political and social developments unfold in Fragments of Ice, which was edited together from fifteen VHS tapes covering the period 1986 to 1994: video diaries shot by the director’s father, a champion figure-skater, on his foreign tours with the Ukrainian Ensemble Ballet on Ice, as well as in his own home. As we follow director Maria Stoianova growing up, we witness the parallel collapse of the Soviet Union and Ukraine’s journey towards regaining its independence, then its transition to a market economy. Expectations reflected in the glamourous footage of the West, shot by Stoianova’s father, contrast starkly with the home video footage of peeling walls, collapsed ceilings and cockroaches back at the family flat.

Fragments of Ice captures both the broad sweep of history and the impact of this on the lives of real people, ending with a new upheaval — the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022. “The end of history never happened,” Stoianova muses. “It froze and caught up with us years later.”