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Ukrainian film director Maria Stoianova said this in her first media interview, released ahead of the world premiere of her debut feature, Fragments of Ice, at the Swiss documentary film festival Visions du Lille. variety How her intentions for the film changed after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
Based entirely on archival footage shot on video camera by her father, a former Soviet-era Ukrainian figure skater, the film, voiced by the 1986-born director, tells the story of her family. It transports viewers back to the mid-80s to early 90s. , they experience the dissolution of the Soviet Union and dreams of a Western paradise.
variety Check out the first trailer for the movie below.
Stoanova began editing the book in 2021, before Russia invaded Ukraine. Her narration explains that her father enthusiastically photographed moments spent with his family and during the Ukrainian Ensemble Ballet on Ice’s overseas tours, but that during their trips to Eastern Bloc countries he “didn’t have any interest in it”. ” was the reason he didn’t film it. he. “
Her initial purpose was to explore “this vision of paradise” that her parents and many others in the former Soviet bloc had for the West, and how it evolved amid changing sociopolitical conditions. She explains that it was about finding out.
She was about halfway through editing when the war started. It was then that she realized that there were two sides to her “coming of age” that were represented in her own films.
“One is about the ideal world you want to achieve. What you see from a distance is so fascinating, so maybe there’s an illusion. But as you get closer, it gets deeper and more complex. .
“The other is about postcolonial identity as a nation, as a society that has gained independence, and how we are in the process of understanding ourselves and explaining ourselves to others. “How can you explain yourself to the world without understanding who you are?” she asks.
Editing was halted following the death of editor Viktor Onisko, who was killed in combat with Russian troops in December 2022, and the film was dedicated to him. Last year, I resumed editing with Marina Majkowska (We Will Not Fade Away).
In her narration, Stoianova not only tells her family’s story, but also reads excerpts from the ballet archives. In her director’s notes, she explains that her intention was to set the film in a late Soviet era setting.
“Ballet archives were perfect for this. (…) They bear witness to a time when no one listened to speakers at conferences, and speeches were artificial and intentionally full of clichés. They were written in a complex language. These documents expressed official ideology (…). By reading the official archive documents against the real-life footage filmed by my father, I was able to understand the reality. “I wanted to convey the contradiction between this and the official explanation,” she explains.
According to the director, the film’s title was inspired by his father’s work as a figure skater and is also a metaphor.
On the other hand, she says she imagines the fragments of her father’s footage as “shards of ice” and that that reality frozen in the image can melt and change during the editing process.
On the other hand, she wrote in her director’s notes: “The ice metaphor also works well in the late Soviet era, when ideological programs and public principles of social order were divorced from real life and were seen as if frozen. Of course, the collapse of the USSR brought everything together. I moved it (…). One of my tasks was to revive the memory of that time and to show its connection to the present, or to melt the ice.”
Participating in numerous film development programs including IDFAcademy and DOK Leipzig Co-Pro Market, “Fragments of Ice” was created by fellow Ukrainian filmmaker Alina Gorolova (“This Rain Will Never Stop,” “No Obvious Signs”) Produced by Maksym Nakonechnyi. (“Butterfly Vision”) is a work of her Tabor Collective and co-produced with Norway’s leading documentary company Indie Film.
Mr. Tabor won Vision du Lille’s top industry award last year for his war trilogy, “Days to Remember.”
“Shards of Ice” will have its world premiere at Vision du Lille on April 13th. This festival will be held in Nyon from April 12th to April 21st.
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