‘SAODAT ISMAILOVA: ZUKHRA / STAINS OF OXUS’

The cinema of Saodat Ismailova – born in 1981 in Tashkent, Uzbekistan – brings to surface Central Asia’s soul, by creating modern myths that continuously reflect the recent past of the
region. The festival presents her work for the first time in Brussels, in a singular diptych. In Uzbek, Zukhra is the planet Venus, the morning star that appears in the twilight. In Zukhra we follow a young woman sleeping, while hearing the sound of her heart beating, her dreams, even her memories. We can come to know her by the sounds of her past. Stains of Oxus evokes an oneiric journey through the greatest Central Asian river, Amu Dariya – known in Greek times as Oxus, portraying the transformation of landscape and witnessing people who inhabit its riverbanks, beginning from the high plateau of Tajikistan to the lowland deserts in Uzbekistan where the river finds its end in the Aral Sea. A collection of dreams that is by local tradition shared with flowing water, and practiced as a first morning ritual, is now captured and revealed on the screen.