Uzbek filmmaker and artist Saodat Ismailova explores the complex culture of Central Asia with the film Melted into the Sun, presented here as an installation at Batalha Centro de Cinema. Inspired by myths, rituals and oral histories, often featuring women, Ismailova’s work reveals systems of knowledge forgotten by globalised modernity.

Melted into the Sun — a visual journey centred on Al-Muqanna, a dyer who became a spiritual and political agitator in the south of Central Asia in the 8th century — speculates on the cultural and political echoes of revolutionary ideas. The legacy of Al-Muqanna, who could today be described as a “proto-socialist”, was appropriated by the Soviet propaganda machine as a heroic example of the struggle for communal ownership of property and wealth. With a cyclical vision of history and knowledge, in which meanings are unstable and constantly reformulated, the artist has reimagined Al-Muqanna’s discourse by inviting Uzbek poet Jontemir Jondor to create a modern version of the charismatic leader.

Commissioned and produced by the Fondazione In Between Art Film and co-produced by Batalha Centro de Cinema, Melted into the Sun was part of the group exhibition Nebula at the 2024 Venice Biennale.

Free entry