18 000 Worlds - Film Screening by Saodat Ismailova

Drawing from Sufi traditions that suffuse Uzbeki life, Ismailova’s film 18 000 Worlds, (2023) (31 min, color, sound), realized with the support of Eye Art and Film Prize, casts light as the main protagonist. It glances off futuristic atomic-era monuments, burnishes tiled turquoise domes, streams in from a cave ceiling, and appears as resplendent sunrises and sunsets, lime-green auroras, and the moon. Within this sphere of light, there are people, too: wizened and smiling, weaving silk, or plucked from the annals of Soviet military history and Western anthropology through archival footage. 18 000 Worlds (2024) is part of the DCAB 2024 film program.

The screening is followed by a conversation between Saodat Ismailova and Andrea Lissoni.