Tree of Violence

Dir. Anna Moiseenko, 2024, 52 min.Tree of Violence is a documentary combining animation and live-action footage to capture the extraordinary artistry of Victoria Lomasko, an artist known for depicting figures of ordinary Russians not often found in mainstream media. We see her standing still amidst public protests against the regime, carefully sketching the outlines of individuals which later appear in large-scale paintings and murals. The film chronicles Lomasko’s life just before the 2022 invasion of Ukraine, when she had to leave Russia in order to protect herself and her artistic integrity. Overlaying historical and personal memory, state violence and familial violence, the film shows to what extent one artist, with a single pen on paper, can engage in truth-telling at moments of tremendous political tension.

Screening followed by a conversation artist Victoria Lomasko, and Julia Alekseyeva, Assistant Professor of English and Cinema & Media Studies at the University of Pennsylvania

Host or Publisher Wolf Humanities Center