Saodat Ismailova is an Uzbek filmmaker and artist whose work interweaves rituals, myths, and dreams to explore the layered cultures of Central Asia. Rooted in oral histories, her films revive forms of knowledge suppressed by globalized modernity and move between visible and invisible worlds. Through a palimpsestic approach, she draws on repressed ancestral memory to reveal the cultural complexity of her region in the aftermath of Soviet domination.
She graduated from the Tashkent State Art Institute and Le Fresnoy — National Studio of Contemporary Arts in France — and has since established an artistic life between Paris and Tashkent. In 2021, she initiated Davra, a research collective dedicated to developing the Central Asian art scene. In 2022, Ismailova participated in both the 59th Venice Biennale and documenta fifteen. She received The Eye Art & Film Prize in 2022, Foundation Pernod Ricard’s Nouveau Programme Award in 2025, and was distinguished as an Art Basel Golden Award Medalist in 2025.
