Letter to a Turtledove(Письмо горлице)

A film-poem, compiled from videos found on social media, archival newsreels, personal notes, and animation fragments created by the artist, Letter to the Turtledove offers an alternative view of the conflict, avoiding the usual “friend/enemy” opposition. Shifting the focus to the agency of the victim in the face of violence, Dana Kavelina addresses her cinematic letter to an unnamed female resident of the war zone, whose body she likens to the suffering land: “Your hair has long become a wire, your teeth turn into nails…”. By reducing the abstract plurality of victims to a single person, Letter to the Turtledove blurs the border between the political and the intimate.