De Harmonie, Toon
Ongoing during festival weekend
Saodat Ismailova
(Tashkent/Paris)
Her Right / Two Horizons
The Festival Center of PAFFF was located in an old cinema that has not bee opretaing as such for over 20 years. To honour this history during PAFFF two video installations of Saodat Ismailova were screened. Underneath you find more information about Her Right (2020) and Two Horizons (2017).
Biography Saodat Ismailova
Born in 1981 in Uzbekistan, Saodat Ismailova portrays the spirit of Central Asia in het films and artworks. In the process, she captures rituals, myths, traditions and landscapes. She also focuses strongly on women, who play a key role in maintaining cultural and spiritual heritage, because stories and customs are passed down from mother to daughter for generations. This aspect of history has remained underexposed and is in danger of disappearing rapidly. Ismailova keeps this intangible heritage alive with her work, using memory as a tool for healing.
Weaving myths, rituals and dreams with everyday life, Ismailova subtly calls attention to societal issues such as the position of women and the disappearance of ecosystems. The turbulent political history of the region is never far away. Central Asia forms a cultural crossroads. Successive regimes, with their accompanying ideologies, belief systems and artificial borders, have caused great unrest. Ismailova reflects on the wrestling loss of culture, languages, generations, landscapes and local traditions and customs. At the same time, she shows what has survived in the region: a rich spiritual world and deep sense of connection.
Ismailova also has a great interest in the history of film. In her work she regularly uses found footage: from the earliest silent Uzbek films to the Soviet films that influenced the development of Central Asian cinema.
Her Right (2020)
Video collage, black and white colour, stereo, 15 min.
Her Right is a portrait of the Uzbek woman during the 20th century. The title is taken from a 1931 Soviet propaganda film of the same name, and refers to women’s right to remove their veils, and they found themselves trapped between traditional culture and emancipation. The film is composed of fragments from old Uzbek films. Some of the footage was shot by Ismailova’s father, who worked as a Director of Photography. The liberation of women was a spearhead policy in the Soviet republic of Uzbekistan, and it was a main subject in many films produced there. These films were mostly forgotten after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. With Her Right Ismailova calls attention to how the female body is deployed as a propaganda tool.
Two Horizons (2020)
Two-channel HD Video installation, colour, 4.1 surround, 24 min.
On 12 April 1961, a man orbited the earth for the first time. Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin took off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome. This remote site, on the edge of the Great Eurasian Steppe in Kazakhstan, is still an important base for the Russian space programme. It is the same place where, transition has it, the first shaman Qorqut defeated death. He succeeded only by defying gravity, since ascending was the key to eternal life. This ancient Central Asian legend turns out to foretell the space programme of the Soviet Union. When Ismailova was filming on the steppe, she heard about the myth from a man she met at a cemetary. She decided to combine the two stories and visualize them in this portrait of a mystical place.