KEYNOTE LECTURE "THE SPIRIT OF TASHKENT” BY MASHA SALAZKINA + TASHKENT 58–88

The "spirit of Tashkent," so often invoked by Soviet organizers and festival reviewers, also alludes to the city’s rich history—from Central Asia's ancient role as a civilizational crossroads along the Silk Road to Tashkent’s status as a showcase of socialist modernity in the Soviet East. In 1958, the city hosted the first Afro-Asian Writers' Congress, which included the initial iteration of an Afro-Asian film festival, fully realized ten years later when Tashkent became a "contact zone" for South-South relations.

In her keynote lecture, Masha Salazkina will provide an overview of the festival's history and reflect on the cinematic internationalism fostered in Tashkent. In her film collage, composed of archival footage from newsreels of the Tashkent Festival, Zumrad Mirzalieva offers a critical examination of the ideological framing behind the Soviet rhetoric of "friendship of peoples.” (CS)

Masha Salazkina is Professor of film studies at Concordia University and research chair in Transnational Media Arts and Cultures.

Zumrad Mirzalieva is a photographer and filmmaker from Uzbekistan and a member of the Davra research collective.