Discoveries from Uzbekistan World Cinema

A fifteen-year-old Bukharan immigrant in Israel pursues her ambitions through a relationship with a twenty-one-year-old Russian newcomer, forcing her to confront the true cost of social climbing.

Islam and terrorism have nothing in common. The lack of purpose in life encourages young people to join the radicals. The main goal of the film is to show the audience the reverse side of the romanticized life of ISIS fighters.

The father of the family and his brother go to work in distant lands. After working in Russia and seeing a lot, the heroes are confident that they can teach their fellow villagers a lot...

Pokser TV short-film

A young paramedic goes to the Middle East in search of work. A loving woman follows her husband. The family of a theologian teacher goes to a hot spot in the hope of finding the true faith... They are all hostages of their delusions. Their dreams are not destined to come true, because war never brings happiness… About the rescue of compatriots trapped in Syria by the Uzbek authorities.

Based on the short story “Dahshat” by the renowned Uzbek writer Abdulla Qahhor, “Unsin” is a short film that captures the indomitable spirit and inner freedom of Uzbek women.

A 30-year-old man named Toir, living in Scotland, returns to Tashkent to get married. At his father’s request, his childhood friends — Anvar, Nusrat, and Qudrat — come to meet him. But an unexpected accident occurs: Qudrat’s martial arts–style greeting leaves Toir paralyzed. Now Toir can still see with his eyes, but his body is motionless — he is “Frozen,” both literally and metaphorically. The three friends embark on bizarre, comedic, and adventurous attempts to cure him. Beneath their efforts lies the genuine power of friendship, kindness, loyalty, and love. Sometimes, to melt a frozen heart, memories, friendship, and love are all it takes…

A film about unobvious space-time connections

The film tells the untold stories of Luli, Central Asian Roma people.

Karimov is dead - but we are not yet. Tashkent of the post-Karimov era.

Bibi Seshanbe Ona – literally ‘The Lady of Tuesday’ – is a widespread blessing ritual in Central Asia. It incorporates elements of animalism, Zoroastrianism and an ancient story comparable to Cinderella. It is performed in a small circle of women and includes cooking special traditional foods, lighting candles and fortune-telling using flour. It is still performed in Uzbekistan and Tadjikistan.

Everyone has tickets for this cruise, but they always leave at different times.

Unable to endure the cruelty of their owners, the farm animals leave the farm in search of the magical land of Susambil.

"Katpar" is an alternative history of the material culture of the region between the Great Steppe and the Tien Shan mountain chain (Ural-Mongol fold belt, Hercynian and Caledonian regions). The viewers' attention is drawn to art and research materials collected in one album, showing fictional artefacts of material culture in its various manifestations - from a nail to large-scale production buildings and high-tech machines. All artefacts demonstrate the particular material forms (fold-qatpar) manifested in this region over centuries as a tension between local nature and culture.

The film is devoted to Azimjon Askarov, an ethnic Uzbek, artist and Kyrgyz human rights defender, who had investigated and documented crimes of Kyrgyz law enforcement agencies. In 2010 during interethnic conflicts in the South of Kyrgyzstan (the city of Osh), Askarov was arrested and sentenced to life in prison. In 2020 Askarov died in prison under unclear circumstances. Askarov’s family and friends are trying to restore justice to him.

Pokser TV short-film

Tashkent Station in the Uzbekistan capital: Passengers rush to catch their trains. A couple, locked in an intimate embrace, so deeply affects the train driver that leaves the train standing and makes a fundamental change in his life. A miniature by Veit Helmer.

The sisters' father is dying — and now the family is forced to move to the city. The eldest quickly has a boyfriend, but after a quarrel and an unsuccessful attempt to get married, she commits suicide. And now the youngest wants to take revenge on the heartthrob, considering him the culprit of all the troubles...

A guy loves a girl named Charos, but hides it and demands that the girl be more beautiful, like the women in the movies he watches. Suddenly, a woman appears, with whom the guy falls in love. But whether it happened in life or not - that is the question!

Jasur falls in love with Will first, he is engaged to her. Then he falls in love with a designer, an older woman with 2 children.

Pokser TV short-film

To Be Added soon

To Be Added soon

To Be Added soon

Rahat Shukurova, a woman living in the capital, learns of the death of a person from her past, prompting her to travel to a remote mountain village called Archali. This village holds painful memories for Rahat that continue to haunt her.

Amid life’s harsh trials, Bekzod struggles to preserve his dreams and pride as he travels from Andijan to Tashkent to fight for his love, family, and future. Surrounded by unemployment, debt, betrayal from friends, and the pressures of city life, he searches for a new path. His dream of “quick money” leads him into the world of trading, where not only great opportunities but also dangerous traps await.

Water like a memory contains the many processes – our emotions, feelings, mood - it all has its own sound. This short experiment shows the power of water, unpredictability and unique of sound. In which sound is associated as the "presence of life", and silence as its absence.

A remote Uzbek village is ravaged by a merciless drought. The desperate inhabitants resort to ancient rituals in an attempt to alter their cruel fate. However, for some individuals the suffering goes even deeper: Usman, an ousted journalist who now works as a teacher, has written an article about the rape of an underaged female student. Instead of justice being served, the crime is covered up. Even worse: Hozhar, the student in question, is not permitted to leave her house, on the orders of her father, while Usman is arrested for defamation and thrown in jail. Ahbor, the film's protagonist, a high-ranking civil servant who recently quit his job, heeds his old university friend's call for help and travels to the village, where he attempts everything in his power to restore both the girl's honour and that of his friend.

This film focuses on Zulfiya, a teenage girl who lives with her grandmother in a small Uzbek village while her mother works in a city. It explores Zulfiya's life as she wants to move to the city to stay with her mother.

Pokser TV short-film

Fayzullo (79 years old), Mardon (73 years old) and Hamrokul (83 years old) are close friends. Until this age, they traveled by bicycle to all 11 regions of Uzbekistan, except for the Khorezm region and the Republic of Karakalpakstan. They were set to tour again in early 2021. Unfortunately, the pandemic began and this dream did not come true. Two years later - in 2023 - they got... another chance to make this dream come true.

About Russians living in Fergana, why they are not going to leave and what they see as the meaning of their presence on the land of Turkestan

Two Horizons is a two-screen video that speculates between ancient Turkic legend and soviet space travel program. The First Shaman of the Great Eurasian Steppe – Qorqut tried to escape Death throughout his life. It appeared to him as a seven years old boy. The only way for Qorqut to escape Death and achieve immortality was to levitate, hence beating gravity. It occurred in the southern edge of the Great Steppe. Locals venerate this place, as they believe that Qorqut revealed umbilical navel of the Earth. Later in the middle of the XX century this same place became known to the world as Baikonur, Soviet Union’s Space Station. Where the First Human defied gravity in mission Vostok - 1, traveling to space in the search of eternal life.

A young woman lies on her deathbed or in a lethargic sleep. It is filled with memories, sensations that can be associated with the destinies of Uzbek women of the 20th century.

Filmed in Bukhara.

Farukh is accused of financial fraud with the loans of the bank where he works. He is being judged. To save her son, the mother sells a house and a car, covering the debts of the bank. Farukh is going free, but now he urgently needs to find money to save his house. He learns about the fatal illness of the daughter of the chairman of the bank and offers her to marry him and promises to "carry her in her arms" and make her happy. She agrees to a marriage of convenience ...

Listening to runaways ages 6 to 14, brought into the ‘babies room’ of the police station, where the police must decide whether to return the children to their homes or send them to orphanages.

The story of caracul fur production, sheep separated for slaughter from lambs three days old, the difficulty not only for the sheep but also for the shepherds who put much energy into the birthing of the lambs.

A shabbily elegant old man, widowed and treated with matter-of-fact derision by his daughter and his tomboy granddaughter, begins to lose touch with the world.

A classic duel of "ratsionalism" and "irratsionalism", but this time, you are secondant.

A young architect, fresh out of university and convinced the world is his for the taking, hits a rough patch where he’s forced to wait for his big break. During this time, he meets someone who profoundly changes his outlook on life—not just once, but time and time again.

A psychologist, Umida strives to help people in her everyday life, while living with recurring dreams about Mount Fuji. The interplay between dreams and reality gradually reveals her inner search, psychological state, and process of self-understanding.

Short film

Uzbek and Tajik women in eastern Uzbekistan celebrate the arrival of spring by gathering at the grave of an Islamic saint. The Afghan redbud trees growing on the site are in full bloom. The magical communion between nature, human, Islamic saint, and God is celebrated.

Nazim Abbasov's documentary

Rites and rituals have, for decades or even centuries, ingrained behavioral models into our subconscious, which at first glance may seem harmless. But how relevant are they to the place and time we live? What role do they play in shaping gender stereotypes? Weddings, circumcision, beshik-toy, and many other rituals and ceremonies of the peoples of Uzbekistan—what roles do they assign to men and women? We were quite interested in observing all of this.

CH is a collaborative video project crafted in 2023 by Daria Kim in tandem with Uzbekistani musician Josef Tumari. The visual piece captures anxiety, portraying the physical manifestations of this feeling through plasticine shape-shifting bodies that seamlessly transform into landscapes. Dry Central Asian terrains linger in anticipatory tension, awaiting seismic shifts. The poem, situated at the culmination point of the video work, also emerges from anxiety. It has been translated and voiced by the DeepL, for whom, due to its inanimate origin, this feeling remains unknown.

Nasira, a partially-sighted, formerly famous singer, works as a janitor at the Solar Institute in Parkent. Despondent, she retreats more and more into recollections of her past.

Nine construction workers from different cities in Uzbekistan come to the capital to live and work together away from their families. Their days are characterized by hard work and tension. Their only joy is hearing the voices of their beloved wives and children from their distant homeland.

Portrait of a typical European feminist - Olga Lipovskaya (1954-2021), journalist, translator, poet, founder of the women's non-profit organization St. Petersburg Center for Gender Issues (an educational and resource center for women and women's organizations), editor of the samizdat magazine Women's Reading.