Saodat Ismailova Biography: Career, Net Worth, Age, Height, Parents, Children, Spouse, Movies

Saodat Ismailova, is an Uzbek filmmaker, artist, and cultural advocate whose immersive works unearth the spiritual undercurrents of Central Asian heritage through cinema, installation, and multimedia.

She weaves myths, rituals, and archival echoes into narratives that probe women’s histories, ecological scars, and collective amnesia, as seen in her breakthrough 40 Days of Silence (2014) and Venice Biennale contributions like Zukhra (2013).

Ismailova’s boundary-pushing practice—spanning festivals from Berlin to documenta fifteen—elevates underrepresented voices, while initiatives like the DAVRA collective and her co-edited volume Beginning in the Middle: Conversations on the Post-Soviet foster a vibrant dialogue on regional identity, securing her as a pivotal force in global contemporary art.

Profile

• Full Name: Saodat Ismailova
• Stage Name: Saodat Ismailova
• Born: 1981
• Age: 45 years old
• Birthplace: Tashkent, Uzbekistan
• Nationality: Uzbek
• Occupation: Film Director, Artist, and Writer
• Height: 1.65m
• Parents: Mr. Ismailov and Mrs. Ismailova
• Siblings: 1
• Spouse: Unknown
• Children: 2
• Relationship: Married
• Net Worth: $2 million

Early Life and Education

Saodat Ismailova entered the world in 1981 in Tashkent, Uzbekistan. Her father, Mr. Ismailov, a seasoned cinematographer who founded a key photography faculty post-Soviet collapse, and her mother, Mrs. Ismailova.

She grew up alongside one older brother, a painter whose sketches captivated her during long Tashkent afternoons.

Ismailova honed her vision at the Uzbekistan State Institute of Arts and Culture, graduating with a film degree amid influences from Parajanov and Tarkovsky.

She is of Uzbek heritage, though her religion is unknown.

Career

Saodat Ismailova ignited her path in the early 2000s, co-directing the documentary Aral: Fishing in an Invisible Sea (2004) during her Fabrica residency, a poignant chronicle of ecological ruin in the Aral basin that clinched Best Documentary at Turin’s film festival and marked her debut in probing Central Asia’s vanishing landscapes.

She deepened this inquiry with Zukhra (2013), a video installation blending dreams and Soviet archives to trace women’s subjugation under the Hujum campaign, unveiled at Venice’s Central Asian Pavilion and lauded for its hypnotic fusion of myth and history.

Ismailova’s first feature, 40 Days of Silence (2014), premiered at Berlin’s Forum section with a nomination for best debut, unfolding a family’s silences in Kyrgyzstan to honor ritual healing amid patriarchal shadows.

Ismailova broadened her scope in residencies across Europe, crafting The Haunted (2017) in Norway—a spectral essay on the extinct Turan tiger as colonial metaphor—and Stains of Oxus (2018) at Le Fresnoy, a three-channel immersion into riverine myths that screened at Tromsø and solidified her command of installation.

She launched Qyrq Qyz (2018), reimagining 40 warrior women legends for BAM and Paris’s Musée du Quai Branly, while co-editing Beginning in the Middle: Conversations on the Post-Soviet (2019) to amplify regional discourses.

Her 2020 short Her Five Lives for the Asian Film Archive dissected Uzbek women’s cinematic arcs, and solo shows like Q’org’on Chirog at Tashkent’s CCA introduced syncretic verses blending poetry and visuals.

Ismailova founded the DAVRA collective in 2021, uniting Central Asian creators for archival digs, and curated CCA Lab’s year-long program on contemporary practices.

Saodat Ismailova anchors global stages with Chillahona (2022) at Venice, a triptych on perestroika’s embroidery of memory, and Bibi Seshanbe (2022) at documenta fifteen, a ritual retelling of Cinderella that spotlighted her as the sole Central Asian voice.

She claimed the Eye Art & Film Prize in 2022 for her oeuvre’s mesmerizing layers, followed by 18,000 Worlds at Amsterdam’s Eye in 2023, weaving myths into healing tapestries.

Ismailova’s 2024 Pirelli HangarBicocca survey A Seed Under Our Tongue commissions like As We Fade and Arslanbob—probing environmental fragility in Kyrgyzstan—while her 2025 Pernod Ricard fellowship and STUK solo Her Journeys, Her Lives extend transmissions of knowledge through film and sculpture.

Social Media

• Instagram Handle: Unknown
• Facebook Handle: Saodat Ismailova
• Twitter Handle: Unknown

Personal Life

Saodat Ismailova shares her world with a husband and two children, having spent three formative years in Barcelona raising them amid her early European sojourns.

Ismailova splits time between Paris studios and Tashkent’s familial rhythms, where she tends to quiet rituals like archival dives and garden reflections that echo her films’ dream logic.

Filmography

• Aral: Fishing in an Invisible Sea (2004)
• Zukhra (2013)
• 40 Days of Silence (2014)
• The Haunted (2017)
• Stains of Oxus (2018)
• Qyrq Qyz (2018)
• Her Five Lives (2020)
• Chillahona (2022)
• Bibi Seshanbe (2022)
• Arslanbob (2024)

Net Worth

Saodat Ismailova has an estimated net worth of $2 million. Grants from residencies like DAAD and Le Fresnoy, plus prizes such as the 2022 Eye Art & Film award, form core inflows, alongside exhibition commissions from Pirelli HangarBicocca and documenta. Royalties from festival circuits, Centre Pompidou acquisitions, and DAVRA-funded projects bolster her financial success.