Kai and Gerda are next door neighbours and best friends who find a refuge to play and dream under the rose boxes of two modest attic apartments.
In the guise of a troll, the devil creates a magic mirror that makes the beautiful appear ugly and the ugly appear beautiful. The troll's servants carry the mirror all over the world to distort everything and seek to mock God and the angels with it. But as they approach heaven, the mirror falls and shatters into thousands of splinters.
Kai is hit in the heart and eye by two splinters. His heart turns into a lump of ice and his vision distorts everything beautiful into ugly. He becomes a cruel boy, tears off the roses and mocks Gerda.
One day, Kai is kidnapped by the Snow Queen, who lives in a world of ice and snow. But Gerda is determined to save him. The memory of the roses keeps her love glowing and helps her overcome all dangers on her way, even when she is trapped in carelessness and attacked by robbers. This power, which astonishes even mystical figures on her way, takes her to the Snow Queen's castle, where Kai tries in vain to lay the word "eternity" out of ice blocks in order to regain his freedom. But the splinter of glass that distorts his clear vision causes him to fail again and again, making all of his design patterns appear more beautiful and more important than "eternity". Gerda bursts into tears that melt Kai's icy heart. Kai responds with tears, which heals his eye from the second splinter. Now the word "eternity" appears by itself and Kai is free. When they arrive at the old place of refuge, they are already adults.
Volha Kastsel introduces the Snow Queen is not only through the pen but also through the heart of Hans Christian Andersen. His lifelong and desperate search for a soulmate was bitter. His unrequited love for the soprano singer Jenny Lind is associated by many with the story of the Snow Queen. Yet, Andersen found solace, embracing his gift to the world. With more than 150 fairy tales that move to tears children and adults alike, he is gifting us with the much-needed moments of contemplation. Moments that heal us from the blindness of arrogance, liberate us from the temptation of indifference and protect us from cold-heartedness. Kai and Gerda accompany each one of us, incarnating the distorted beauty of success and the success of an eternal beauty that moves us to tears so we can see clearly again. There is no better place for this beauty than Vianden Castle. Volha Kastsel's Snow Queen is a heart-rending journey into Andersen’s “eternity”.