Melted into the Sun is a film about the ambiguous figure of al-Muqanna, known as “The Veiled One,” who led a movement of people in white garments in the eighth century in what is now Central Asia. He drew inspiration from the Sun, understood as a purifying and central force that promised justice beyond human authority.

Born into a Zoroastrian tradition, al-Muqanna was a dyer by profession, till he emerged as a spiritual and political agitator. He preached syncretic ideology drawing from Zoroastrianism, Mazdakism and Buddhism. Although he awakened collective consciousness, his legacy is deeply contested and the questions he raised and fought for remain unresolved. Arab historians portrayed him as a charlatan, while Soviet histories framed him as a proponent of proto-socialism.

The film moves across sites linked to al-Muqanna’s legend, from the Amu Darya River, Chillpiq and Bukhara to the Zoroastrian fortress of Kafir-Kala. Soviet infrastructures, including the Kirov Reservoir and Uzbekistan’s solar furnace appear as modern extensions of power over land and energy.

Working from a cyclical view of history, the artist reimagines al-Muqanna’s teachings in the film. Al-Muqanna reappears as an unstable figure shaped by myth, ideology, and appropriation. His image shifts across belief systems and political narratives, entangled with technologies of power. His fall frames a persistent question: is humanity capable of building a fair society?

Melted into the Sun is presented as part of the year-long film programme How to Reappear, curated by Indranjan Banerjee.

About the artist
Saodat Ismailova is an Uzbek filmmaker and artist who came of age in the post-Soviet era. Interweaving rituals, myths, and dreams within the tapestry of everyday life, her films investigate the historically complex and layered cultures of Central Asia. Frequently rooted in oral histories and exploring systems of knowledge suppressed by globalized modernity, her works hover between visible and invisible worlds. She graduated from the Tashkent State Art Institute and Le Fresnoy — National Studio of Contemporary Arts in France — and has since established artistic lives between Paris and Tashkent. In 2021, she initiated Davra, a research collective dedicated to developing the Central Asian art scene. In 2022, Ismailova participated in both the 59th Venice Biennale and documenta fifteen. She received The Eye Art & Film Prize (Amsterdam, 2022), Foundation Pernod Ricard’s Nouveau Programme Award (2025), and became an Art Basel Golden Award Medalist in 2025.

About the film programme
How to Reappear presents a series of films that explore what it means to be remade, to survive and to persist in altered forms. The works draw viewers into intimate encounters with transition and transformation, revealing the intensity and tenderness of these processes as well as their moments of shock and disorientation. In these stories, flesh, terrains and topographies become sites where transformation unfolds. They underscore the fragility of bodies and landscapes as myth, illusion and virtuality shape how change is imagined and endured. To explore the film programme, click here.

Saodat Ismailova
Melted into the Sun
2024
Single-channel 2K colour video, 16:9, stereo sound
35 min. 50 s.
Commissioned and produced by Fondazione In Between Art Film and co-produced by Batalha Centro de Cinema Porto for the exhibition Nebula 2024.