The film directed by Maria Stoianova (‘Ma’, ‘The Second Wave’) covers the late 1980s and early 1990s, including the collapse of the USSR. ‘Fragments of Ice’ is based on amateur videos shot by Maria’s ice skater father, and the director acted as narrator, Variety writes
About the project concept
The purpose of the film is to show this vision of ‘paradise’ that Soviet people had of the West, and how it evolved amid a changing socio-political landscape.
During editing, Stoianova realized that the film has two ‘sides’: ‘One is about the ideal world that you want to achieve — maybe there are illusions, because what you see from a distance is so attractive. But then you get closer and it becomes deeper and more complicated’.
The other is about this post-colonial identity as a nation, as a society that gains independence — and how we are in the process of understanding ourselves and explaining ourselves to others.
The title ‘Fragments of Ice’ refers to her father’s job. She says she imagined the pieces of footage shot by her father as fragments of ice, whose ‘reality, frozen in the images’, could ‘melt and shift’ during the editing process.
Also, according to Maria, the metaphor of ice also works well for the late Soviet period:
‘Ideological schemes and official principles of social order were detached from real life, as if frozen. Of course, the collapse of the USSR set everything in motion. I wanted to revive the memories of those times and to show their connection to the present day, or to let the ice melt’.
What footage was included in the film
Maria’s father was an ice skater of the Ukrainian Ensemble ‘Ballet on Ice’ and traveled a lot. Footage from these travels and the director’s family videos were included in the film.
Maria also supplemented the story of her family with excerpts from the ballet’s archives. In this way, she wanted to add the context of the late USSR to the narrative.
‘They testify to the times when no one listened to the speakers at the meetings, and the speeches were written in an artificial, deliberately complicated language with numerous clichés. These texts expressed the official ideology. I tried to convey the discrepancy between reality and its official description, by reading them against the real-life footage’, Stoianova explains.
The film is produced by Alina Gorlova (‘This Rain Will Never Stop’) and Maksym Nakonechnyi (‘Butterfly Vision’).
The film will debut at the Visions du Réel Swiss film festival on April 13.
Продюсерами стрічки виступили Аліна Горлова («Цей дощ ніколи не скінчиться») та Максим Наконечний («Бачення метелика»).
Фільм дебютує на швейцарському кінофестивалі Visions du Réel 13 квітня.
SUNNY BUNNY queer film festival will be held in Kyiv from April 19 to 26. Among the films in its program is ‘All of Us Strangers’ with Andrew Scott and Paul Mescal.
The film is about a 40-year-old writer Adam, who lives alone in a near-empty tower block outside London. One evening his drunk neighbor Harry starts flirting with him, and later the chance encounter develops into a love story between the men.
We told you more about the other films that will be shown at SUNNY BUNNY in our article.
The Strategic Media Support Program project implements the Lviv Media Forum with financial support from People in Need (PIN) and Pioneer Foundation.
