Text from film extract

This miracle consists of the fact that we have gathered in one of the best auditoriums of the Soviet Union. That we are all present on central television and that we have the opportunity to convey the existing psychotherapeutic possibilities to the entire nation. Before we conduct our act of psychological influence specifically, I want to warn you that our session, which I consider having already begun, literally from the first second when our communication started, I believe that is when healing is activated.

• From Anatoly Kashpirowsky, Healing Session 1, 1989, Moscow

The healing forest

Filipa Ramos – What led you in the first place to the forest of Arslanbob?

Saodat Ismailova – Arslanbob, which is located in southern Kyrgyzstan, translates as “tiger gate.” I discovered the Arslanbob forest during my research on the Turan tiger, which used to live in Central Asia and became extinct in the 1960s. In response to this loss, I made the film The Haunted (2017). Another fascination with this place is that
this is the oldest and largest natural walnut forest in the world. Walnuts behave in a particular way: they apparently produce more carbon dioxide than oxygen, and release
toxins that can have hallucinogenic effects on humans and animals. Growing up, our elders warned us not to sleep under walnut trees, as it was believed that doing so could attract other entities, make us visualize fears or get haunted by bad spirits. Speaking with people who experienced the walnut effect, I haven’t come across light-hearted  stories, they tend to be overwhelmingly suffocating.

Therefore, in this sacred space of an ancient forest, which is rich with stories and legends, and hosts the tomb of an important local saint, the unpredictable behaviour of the tree, the way it impacts its environment and the hallucinogenic qualities of walnuts, all became the focus of my research.

With Arslanbob: The Healing Forest you are showing how cinema can happen outside an enclosed, dark space. Why did you choose a forest?

I have been working on the Arslanbob walnut forest since 2022, and I’m still developing a film in parallel, which I hope to complete by 2026. When I first visited the Arslanbob forest, my immediate instinct was to make a film that captures the act of walking, as the forest itself invites us to this experience. When I received an invitation from Kunstenfestivaldesarts to do a performative project in a forest, I thought about connecting two forests—Arslanbob and that one in which we will be, as if they share an invisible relation and dialogue. The presentation in Brussels explores and somehow rehearses an act of walking. Developing the project, I have come to see that walking mirrors the process of thinking as well: it pushes boundaries, unexplored and uncharted territories, and uncovers unexpected mysteries that may link seemingly unrelated narratives.

Interestingly, both cinema and natural psychotropic substances have the capacity to cause hallucinations— sort of mirages that vanish from sight but not from our minds, where they remain imprinted. It is not the first time you engage with visions and ghosts that exist across the natural and the human realm. I would like to know more about this interest of yours...

I guess it is a kind of permanent movement towards the invisible, the uncatchable and the undefinable, that influences everything. As for cinema, it possesses the power to transport us to another realm where we can go beyond our physical limitations, moving beyond the constraints of time and space. In cinema we are given the opportunity to enter an imaginary world, which I believe closely resembles the experience we have in our dreams.

Arslanbob is a walk into a forest that echoes Arslanbob forest and its intoxicating power. In our hallucinatory journey we’ll encounter the most unsettled and recent chapter of ex-Soviet collective memory through film and gesture. By overlaying a narrative of hallucination onto hypnosis, we’ll be taken to the figure of Anatoly Kashpirovsky, a Soviet hypnotist and healer, who became very important during the collapse of the Soviet Union. His healing TV sessions, broadcasted on the main TV channel, were watched by millions seeking a cure through the screen, but also trying to find a spiritual guru to hold on to in turbulent times.

Perhaps this is a vision I would have if I fell asleep be- neath a walnut tree in the Arslanbob forest, a haunting and suffocating perestroika period, which was full of contradictions and has deeply marked all of us who lived through it. This work also has a part relating to the reflection on manipulation and propaganda that we can feel overwhelming us today. However, the natural sounds from the Arslanbob forest will pull us gradually out of this unsettling dream, gently guiding us back to the present moment.

Two performers will lead people around. What is their role and instructions? Also, how was it for you working with someone who isn’t acting in a film, whom you can’t edit?

There are two performers with whom I previously worked: Muhtor Asrorov and Durdona Tilavova. They have distinctly different roles in the performance. Muhtor is connected to the audience; he represents humanity and guides everyone into a journey. Durdona’s presence is distant and almost transparent, she embodies the memories of the forest, leaves, earth, or the spirits that emerge in the visions. She observes us until we, the spectators, feel observed. It is exactly how I felt in Arslanbob forest.

Performative form has a different sense of independence compared to film. I often questioned the rigidity of film, once you go out of post-production, it is fixed. Here the piece will continue to evolve. Moreover, there is a 25-minute film integrated into the performance; it felt natural for me to make it. It helped me to commit to the performative form, thinking of it as forest cinema.

Do you believe that cinema and performance make it possible to transpose the experience of one environment to another place? What would you like to happen when people take part in this work?

I hope we’ll experience the presence of the forest, feel embraced by it, and somehow immerse ourselves in it, allowing us to sense a greater presence—one that existed before us and will remain after us. Even though Arslanbob is quite a figurative work, I wish for it to transport us into a space which is not human-centric, reminding us that we
are merely a tiny episode in a greater time.

I also hope the audience will be lost in the forest—not in a physical sense, but rather mentally, as they attempt to piece together lines and sensations, pondering why we are in the forest without finding a definitive answer. Perhaps at some point, we can let go of this mental search for reasoning and context, allowing our bodies to relax and our minds to stop processing, so we can simply listen and observe. And who knows, maybe the forest may haunt some of us, leading us into a journey; we might become hypnotized by
certain images and sounds, or maybe we’ll discover recent history—a memory that has yet to be metabolised and that continues to haunt our dreams.

• Interview conducted by Filipa Ramos in April 2025

Filipa Ramos writes about art, film and animals. She curates exhibitions, screenings and live events around the same subjects. She is Lecturer at Institute Art Gender Nature of the FHNW Academy of Art and Design, Basel. Her most recent book, The Artist as Ecologist (2025), surveys the ways in which contemporary artists engage with the environment.