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."

Fragments of Ice

Future comes now and in the next second, like waves; while the photography stays at the depth where the wave no longer moves the water particles. This depth is equal to about one half the distance between me and my grandfather. The distance between us is called a wavelength.

The Second Wave

The film is made from home video recordings made by a Ukrainian family in 2002-2008. Like most home videos focusing on children, they convey the feeling of a beginning and perspective - but also of repetitiveness, mundanity, the hum of time. What is our 'together' made of? What connections keep us together? Through vernacular videos from the past, the film seeks to speak (often in baby talk and children's riddles) about plurality, rootedness, about us.