Fragments of Ice review – fascinating chronicle of Soviet collapse through the lens of a Ukrainian ice skater

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Film-maker Maria Stoianova mines her father’s video diaries from the 1980s and 90s to document the decline of communism – and his obsession with western shopping malls Here is an interesting film which does not render up its meaning easily: a personal piece about memory, and an enigmatic essay about the decline and fall of the Soviet Union as it was experienced by one family in Ukraine, based entirely on home-movie video footage. It is innocent and transparent, and yet subtly encumbered by the sadness of history. I can imagine Adam Curtis quoting this in its entirety for some new compilation about the post-communist 20th century. Film-maker Maria Stoianova presents us with video clips shot by her dad, Mykhailo Stoianov, an ice skater and ice dancer with the Ukrainian national ice ballet company who, throughout the communist 1980s and into the new era, toured the US, Canada, the Middle East and western Europe. (Mykhailo even played Blackpool in the UK.) The skaters were a privileged cul...
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Nightmare review – atmospheric property horror treads line between dreams and reality

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A young woman is tormented in her sleep in this crepuscular debut feature from Norwegian writer-director Kjersti Helen Rasmussen

If there is one place you would have thought a sleep-deprived person might be able to stop herself dropping off, it’s in a lecture about sleep. But that’s what this atmospheric but somewhat heavy-handed debut feature from Norway has its protagonist Mona (Eili Harboe) do as she is introduced by dishevelled academic Aksel (Dennis Storhøi) to the possibility that she has become the victim of the mythical incubus Mare. This may explain a recent run of freakish dreams in which she’s tormented by a vampiric doppelganger of her caring boyfriend Robby (Herman Tømmeraas).

Nightmare also belongs to the school of property horror already occupied by The Tenant and Mother! Left alone by Robby, a high-flyer preoccupied with some kind of algorithmic investment venture, Mona is charged with renovating their sprawling new apartment which they acquired on the cheap after its previous occupant, who was pregnant, died in a mysterious accident. Their neighbours, who have a newborn baby and are prone to staring eerily across the courtyard, seem to have issues, too. But none of this rings any alarm bells until Mona – vaguely thinking about having kids with Robby – begins sleepwalking.

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