La Patinoire is about a film director who is shooting a highly symbolic film called 'Dolores' at an ice rink. He has hired a Lithuanian ice hockey team with which he is having enormous communication problems. His actors all have inflated egos, his film crew is made up of fools, and there is a politician on his back. But he must finish the film, no matter what, in time for the Venice Film Festival.

L'équipe d'un film tourné pour la télévision fait ses premiers pas sur la glace d'une patinoire qui va servir d'unique décor au tournage. Elle se rend bien vite compte de la nature éminemment glissante du terrain sur lequel elle se trouve...