Shuhrat Abbosov

Shuhrat Abbosov (Shukhrat Abbasov) was born on 16 January 1931 in Kokand. He finished the Tashkent Medical Technical School in 1949, then chose the arts instead and entered the directing faculty of the Ostrovsky Tashkent Theatre and Art Institute, graduating in 1954.

From 1954 to 1956 he was chief director of the Mannon Uygur regional musical drama theatre in Yangiyul. As a stage director he staged plays including B. Rahmanov’s “Yurak sirlari”, Komil Yashin’s “Nurxon” and Abdulla Qahhor’s “Og‘riq tishlar”.

In 1958 he completed the Higher Directing Courses at Mosfilm in Moscow; his diploma work was the short film “The Filipino and the Drunkard”, based on a story by William Saroyan. From 1958 to 1991 he worked as a director at the Uzbekfilm studio and in 1982–1986 served as its director.

His first great success was the comedy “Mahallada duv-duv gap” (“The Whole Mahalla Is Talking About It”, 1960), regarded as one of the best Uzbek films. “Sen yetim emassan” (“You Are Not an Orphan”, 1962) is based on the true story of a Tashkent family that raised fourteen children of different nationalities during the war, and won a prize at the international film festival in Frankfurt am Main in 1963. He then made “The Enlightenment” (1965), “Tashkent Is a City of Bread” (1968) and “A Love Drama” (1971); the last won the best direction prize at the All-Union Film Festival in Tbilisi in 1972.

Among his historical and biographical work, the two-part “Abu Rayhon Beruniy” (1974) stands out: it won the Main Prize of the 8th All-Union Film Festival in Chisinau (1975) and the Golden Dolphin of the international film festival in Tehran (1977). He also directed the seventeen-part television “film novel” “Olovli yo‘llar” (“Fiery Roads”, 1977–1984) about the life of Hamza Hakimzoda Niyoziy, which received the Grand Prix of the 8th All-Union Television Film Festival (1979). In 1977 he co-wrote the screenplay of “The Mischievous Boy”, in 1989 he made “A Little Man in a Big War”, in 1995 the documentary series “Toward the Peak of Perfection”, and in 1997 “Fields Left by My Father”, from a script written with M. Toychiyev.

Abbosov also taught: at the Ostrovsky Institute he was a professor from 1983 and head of the Department of Drama and Cinema Art from 1991. He was a secretary of the board of the Union of Cinematographers of Uzbekistan and in 1996–2001 its first deputy chairman. He was named Honoured Art Worker of the Uzbek SSR (1965), People’s Artist of the Uzbek SSR (1974) and People’s Artist of the USSR (1981), and received the Hamza State Prize of the Uzbek SSR (1974) and the Lenin Komsomol Prize of Uzbekistan (1972). After independence he was awarded the Shuhrat Medal (1994) and the Order “El-yurt hurmati” (1998).

Shuhrat Abbosov died in Tashkent on 25 April 2018, aged 87. His sons Nazim (1962–2020) and Eljon also became film directors. On 28 May 2026 he was posthumously awarded the Order “Buyuk xizmatlari uchun” by decree of the President.