My father, a (post-)Soviet figure skating star went on tours to the imaginary West and filmed his life in the transition period of the 80s and 90s. Rediscovering his amateur VHS archive, I explore his vision of paradise against the changing historical background.
15 videotapes, 1986 - 1994. The spirit of traveling to the West. The birth of a daughter. The collapse of the USSR. The end of a carrier and filming, disillusionment. FRAGMENTS OF ICE is a journey of growing-up for society, for the father, and for the daughter. It begins at the time when the majority of the citizens are still not allowed to travel abroad. My father is a privileged one: he is a figure skater of the well-known Ukrainian ensemble “Ballet on Ice”. Enchanted by the opportunity to visit so-called “capitalist paradise”, he buys his first camcorder. Canada, South Africa, Great Britain, Australia, Hong Kong, Germany... And I’m not sure what captured him more in shooting me during his short comebacks: the growth of a child or the superpower of the Western video technology.
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