Goethe-Institut Usbekistan: 
WHOSE VOICE IS THIS? – Archival Findings From Central Asia

‘WHOSE VOICE IS THIS? – Archival Findings From Central Asia’ is the result of a deep engagement with Arsenal’s archive, reconstructing and uncovering forgotten materials. This program, organized in collaboration with and at the Goethe-Institut in Tashkent, offers an opportunity for the research to travel to Central Asia and delve deeper into these topics. How can we reclaim our narratives? How do we move beyond the frameworks that once shaped us? These questions continue to resonate as we reintroduce these films, offering new possibilities for Central Asian cinema today.

Arsenal’s film archive holds around 50 films from Central Asia dating back to the second half of the 20th century, and offering a vivid portrayal of the region’s evolving political, cultural, and artistic landscapes. While Soviet-era cinema adhered to dominant ideological narratives, a closer look reveals an undercurrent of loss, resilience, and subtle resistance. Revisiting these films is an active engagement with memory, not just retrospection. The archive is dynamic and continually evolving, raising new questions. Viewing these films today, Soviet colonial narratives can be encountered, but also the ways individuals resisted and reimagined life beyond those constraints.

In three short film programmes, ‘WHOSE VOICE IS THIS? - Archive Finds from Central Asia’ builds a bridge from Arsenal's film collection to contemporary film production in Central Asia, with a round table discussion on Central Asian film archives. (Dana Iskakova, Saodat Ismailova)