Samizdat x Belmont: Fragments of Ice / Фрагменти льоду

Maria Stoianova's Fragments of Ice / Фрагменти льоду is screening at the Aberdeen Art Gallery on Saturday 7 November, from 15:30 to 17:20. It's part of the Samizdat x Belmont programme, and the main feature is preceded by Self-Preserving Nudity / Я не зникаю, a 2026 short by Nelly Shylova from the Shorts Competition. Natalia Guzevataya curated the session, and the screening opens with a pre-recorded introduction by Stoianova herself.

Fragments of Ice started in 2018 as a bit of family archaeology. Stoianova's father, Mykhailo, was a dancer with the Ukrainian Ballet on Ice, and since 1986 he'd been filming his tours abroad on a VHS camera. Over the years, that footage grew into an essay documentary that traces Ukraine's late-Soviet years, its path to independence, and its imaginaries of the future. It does so through the fragmented personal chronicle of one household — glimpses of a utopian West in dialogue with the daily routines and private celebrations of a Ukrainian family around the collapse of the USSR.

The film won the FIPRESCI Prize at the 2024 Karlovy Vary International Film Festival. It's dedicated to editor Viktor Onysko, who left the project in 2022 to join the Ukrainian army and was killed at the front that December. It's supported by Creative Scotland's Multiyear Fund and Aberdeen City Council's Culture Investment Programme.

The screening is in the Seminar Room at the Aberdeen Art Gallery, Schoolhill, Aberdeen AB10 1FQ, on Saturday 7 November from 15:30 to 17:20. Tickets are £11.50 for concessions and £13.00 full price.