Saodat Ismailova 
Born 1981, Tashkent, Uzbekistan 
Lives and works in Tashkent and Paris, France

Trained as a film director, Saodat Ismailova’s videos and installations draw on the rich cultural identity and varied history of Central Asia, often referencing ancestral knowledge and epic folklore, and centring women as protagonists. The tension between the personal and the collective or public and private are recurrent themes. In Her Right, Ismailova repurposes footage from classic Uzbek cinema to explore the complex realities of Hujum, a Soviet policy that enforced the removal of face veils, and the movement of women outside of the home into the fields to provide labour for the state. The soundtrack is an original score by composer Seaming Too. Her five lives is a related work that shows how representation of Central Asian women has evolved over the decades since Uzbek film first began, drawing on key cinematic moments involving five Uzbek actresses.