Plot

Personal, political and social developments unfold in Fragments of Ice, 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 on his tours, 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 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine. "The End of History never happened", Stoianova muses. "It froze and caught up with us years later."

From the production company behind the multi-award-winning documentary This Rain Will Never Stop, Maria Stoianova's Fragments of Ice gives a deep, personal insight into Ukraine's journey from the latter years of the Soviet Union and into the first years of independence. Personal, political and social developments unfold in characteristic grainy VHS footage of that time in a film edited together from fifteen video 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 during the 1980s and '90s. He filmed (in spite of constant KGB monitoring) only when on tour outside of the USSR, as well as in his own home. "You cross the border and start breathing", he remarks when leaving the USSR in one of the videos.

Fragments of Ice sees director Maria Stoianova growing up as a young child in her father's home videos, and at the same time traces the parallel collapse of the Soviet Union and Ukraine's journey towards regaining its independence, then its transition to a market economy. A momentous journey accompanied by "inaccurate expectations of freedom". Expectations reflected in the glamourous footage of the West shot by Stoianova's father on his tours to Canada, Greece, Australia, Hong Kong and Finland contrasts starkly with the home video footage of peeling walls, collapsed ceilings and cockroaches back at the family flat in the USSR.

Stoianova also carried out archival research into the Ballet's records from the Soviet period: a frozen time when "documents ignored reality, while reality tried to ignore the official documents". When the frozen state of life in the USSR starts to thaw in the late 1980's, Stoianova's father performs abroad in a show referred to as 'Glasnost on Ice'. Reality starts to seep into the Ballet records as inflation in Ukraine hits 10,000%, a record for a country not at war.

Following the breakup of the USSR and Ukrainian independence, Stoianova's father is offered a job at a theme park in Blackpool, UK, where he continues to film on a borrowed camera. Footage shows her parents feeling "free and abandoned" on quaint English streets, no longer watched by the KGB but aware that "here, you have to rely on yourself and make your own decisions about tomorrow".

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 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine. "The End of History never happened", Stoianova muses. "It froze and caught up with us years later."