Discoveries from Uzbekistan World Cinema

Jaslyk Forever reveals the harrowing stories of several former inmates who were imprisoned for their journalism, human rights work, political views, and religious beliefs. Yet, despite the release of these political prisoners, many still live in fear and are ostracized by society. Many have little hope for rehabilitation for the torture and abuse they endured. Through the stories and experiences of former political prisoners, Jaslyk Forever reveals how the human rights situation in Uzbekistan remains dire.

Two buses cross the horizon driving towards Chillpiq. A group of girls climb the ruins that stand on a mount in the middle of the steppe. They arrived to worship a flagpole that crowns the archeological site, one after the other they bind a cloth on it, as if it would be a tree of life. 40 girls circle around the shrine while the sunset is changing the light to dramatic orange, and blur the girls, making them visually dissolving into the site.

Short experimental film

Uzbek historical epic about Mongol tyranny in Uzbekistan.

A girl named Nargiz passed away without her mother. She resembles the mother of a Japanese tourist, who denies it.

A brief of overview of education in Uzbekistan

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A piercingly open talk between a mother and a daughter about growing up as a woman in Uzbekistan, now and back then. Confessions about sex no one really wanted, about the experience of misogyny and gender asymmetry. Naked truths as a form of therapy.

In the lonely life of an elderly actress, appears the same lonely orphanage girl, whose cherished dream is to have her own house, a beloved and wealthy husband and children. Two lonely people find each other, but because of their upbringing and different life views, they do not get along and move apart. The girl misses an opportunity that would change her life and could turn her fate around.

A boy and a girl fall in love. Immersed in the euphoria of their emotions, they forget about customs and traditions. While the boy can walk away from his responsibilities, the girl pays the price of being the subject of malicious gossip and of mothering an unwanted child.

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Saida moves between the roles of teacher, daughter, translator and fixer like a train on its tracks. As her boss looms closer, she must decide whether to continue supporting the system or vanish into a world of her own making.

Four friends — Temur, Ulugbek, Babur, and Jaloliddin find a magic portal and end up in the home of an inventor named Zamon. This is the start of their amazing journey in a land called Sehrlandiya. The boys have to fight an evil villain named Olaboji who wants to steal a time machine and rule the world.

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At the heart of Invisible is a hospital where a mysterious man arrives in critical condition. After a complicated surgery, the doctor begins to sense that something terrifying and inexplicable is affecting the patient. As events unfold, his suspicions are confirmed: some patients appear to be possessed, and he is plagued by hallucinations and unsettling nightmares.

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Shifting perspectives from the visual to the aural, this film is a result of research into the Central Asian holdings of Berlins Arsenal’s archive. It explores the evolution of sound, speech, and music in local cinema from the 1960s to the 1990s. By listening to characters’ concerns through dubbed voices in addition to soundscapes and soundtracks, we can trace the impact of Soviet ideology, its gradual weakening, and the rise of Perestroika’s freedom. Although the archive, with 45 films from Central Asia, cannot represent all of the region’s political and social shifts, it does offer a valuable basis for analyzing how evolving sound reflects broader transformations over three decades.

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Nazim Abbasov's film.

Images of Uzbek folklore permeate the author's story with the motif of trauma. She connects the reflection on self-acceptance and awareness of one's own strength with cultural self-determination and the need for personal and collective resilience. The narrative, woven from themes of traditional Uzbek culture through materials drawn from a variety of sources including archival Uzbek films and photographs, unfolds in an evocative sound design.

Safar, 70 years old, watches videotapes without leaving his house. The father was angry with his son when he emigrated to Russia. Safar doesn't understand modern technology. His life is a videotape. One day, the tape breaks down and Safar is forced into modern life.

An Uzbek comedy where two friends dress up in blackface.

The tragic story of the life of the Dehkan Iskander and his family, engaged in the cultivation of silkworms.

Ismoil and Hasan, two brothers who live in the Katta Langa region of Uzbekistan, make a living selling shoes. The dream of Ismoil the older brother is to one day be able to buy a mule to help them work less hard, while Hasan the younger brother is worried that his brother will live in his dreams.

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Seyit lives with his mother and grandfather in the city of Muynak on the coast of the dried out Aral sea.

Igor Vitalievich Savitsky (1915-1984) is a legendary figure. As a young artist, he moved from Moscow to the deserts of Central Asia, where his passion for finding ancient treasures and his appreciation for the avant-garde led to the creation of one of the world's most unique art collections.

A story about a lonely man who one day got himself a chicken and this led to changes in his life.

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A film by Saodat Ismailova

In a Karakalpak town, an old movie theater is living out its last days. Once upon a time, this was the shore of the Aral Sea, where life was vibrant and the theater flourished. However, with the drying up of the Aral Sea, the country has also changed. The current owner of the theater, a projectionist nicknamed Fellini, is deeply devoted to cinema. His wife, however, does not understand or support his unprofitable passion. One day, a film crew arrives in the town, and Fellini helps them in any way he can, even appearing in an episode.

Jalol damned

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Short film

Short film

KINOGAP presents

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Uzbek film. TBA soon

The elderly and successful former classmates, Muscovites Igor Breitman and Yevgeny Tikhomirov go to a remote Uzbek village for their ex-wife Shurochka’s funeral. They go, eat, drink, argue about shurochka, fight. but it turns out she’s alive.

Stories from the lives of ordinary people in Samarkand during the pandemic. The old teacher Askar gives private lessons and sends his earnings to someone in Russia. An unexpected ending stops all gossip.

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 that inhabit its riverbanks, beginning from the high plateau of Tajikistan to the lowland desserts in Uzbekistan where the river finds its end. Uzbekistan where the river finds its longest journey is one of the two land locked countries in the world, making water a sacred element of nature. Stains of Oxus attempts to bring back a memory of how water has been worshiped and taken care in the tradition. This abstract topographic journey awakes the question of Central Asian ecosystem and landscape, traditions of caring about water and brings up the problem of water mismanagement in the region in a poetic way.

"Special award for the best avant-garde film, Italy"

Night walks in Moscow

A young couple finds an unusual way to deal with the wife being harassed.

Gaziboy wins the car in the lottery. He takes a lot of money from his father and goes to town.

Lost social drama film from Uzbekistan

Saodat Ismailova looks back at the history of female heroines over nearly a century of Uzbek cinema in order to chart the changing perception of women and the state of the film industry more widely. Commissioned as part of Asian Film Archive’s Monographs, a series of essays on Asian cinema.

This symbolic and suggestive film is a cinematic letter to an extinct race of tigers, and uses an almost hallucinatory force to conjure up a mythological, Central Asian world of yesterday. The majestic animal speaks to us about the historical changes that led up to its own extinction, but it lives on in the collective imagination of Turkestan as a sacred image of the soul.

Jamol, after being released from prison, starts working at a businesswoman’s household and takes care of the children while their mother is constantly busy with work.

An animated film based on Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tale.

Nazim Abbasov's documentary