Oksana Skorik (16) is a talented dancer. She attends Perms Order of Honour Choreographic School, far east in Russia. She sees her parents twice a year. Life is about one thing: dance.

Russian ballet is exceptional. It is a distinct part of Russian selfconciousness. Dance is taken to higher levels of perfection than anywhere else. A Beautiful Tragedy tells the intriguing story of the sacrifices young dancers make in order to maintain the position of ballet within Russian culture.

Of five hundred children selected for the annual audition at our school, 30 are accepted. They are 9 years old. They have 9 years ahead - focusing on expressing beauty through body movements. Fat is the enemy. The girls live on the edge of anorexia.
For Oksana the ballet is her opportunity to free herself from poverty. She dreams about the ballerinas 'life on the sunny side of society'. She wants to see the world and to be admired by audiences. But the majority of the girls spend 9 years at school, suffering pain - only to realize that the dream will not come through.

The film is reflecting the ballet as a constant aspect of Russian culture. During the last 100 years the Russians have lived through several dramatic changes of their society. Communism overthrew the tsars empire, dictatorship and uniformism overthrew communism, Gorbatchov overthrew the dictatorship, and Putin reinstalled it with the blessing from capitalism - all this, and the ballet remains the same. Regardless the colour of the political leadership of the country, the ballet remains the pride of the Russian nation.