QUO VADIS, AIDA?
*****
Director: Jasmila Zbanic
Screenwriter: Jasmila Zbanic, inspired by the book Under the UN Flag by Hasan Nuhanovic.
Principal cast:
Jasna Djuricic
Johan Heldenbergh
Boris Isakovic
Izudin Bajrovic
Raymond Thiry
Emir Hadzihafizbegovic
Country: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Austria, Romania, Netherlands, Germany, Poland, France, Turkey and Norway
Classification: M
Runtime: 101 mins.
Australian release date: 17 February 2022.
The writer and director of Quo Vadis, Aida?, Jasmila Zbanic, hails from Sarajevo and was just 20 in July 1995 when the horrific events depicted in her incredibly powerful film took place. As you would expect, the attacks on her home city and the genocidal slaughter that took place in east Bosnia at the hands of Bosnian Serbs had a profound impact on her. Now, she has made a film that looks at the war crimes committed in Srebrenica under General Ratko Mladic and she’s done it by showing us the horrors through the eyes of a Bosnian school teacher working for the UN as a translator. Zbanic explains that, “Personally, Srebrenica is very close to me because I survived the war in Sarajevo which was also under siege and we could have easily ended up as Srebrenica did. I always thought someone must make a film about what happened there, but I never thought it should be me. Yet the story always haunted me. I read everything I could about Srebrenica and only after four films did I feel ready to do this one – knowing there would be many obstacles.” She continues, “After the war and the internal division of Bosnia, Srebrenica remained in the part of the country run by Bosnian Serbs. Our government has many right-wing politicians who are still denying that the genocide in Srebrenica happened. They celebrate war criminals as heroes, denying the Hague International Criminal Court’s decision that what happened in Srebrenica constitutes a genocide.”
Aida Selmanagic (an incredible performance by Jasna Djuricic) is one of a small team of translators working for the Dutch leader of the UN’s blue beret-wearing peace-keeping forces, Colonel Thom Karremans (Johan Heldenbergh). She, her husband Nihad (Izudin Bajrovic) and their two teenage sons get caught up in the mayhem when, despite ultimatums from the UN, General Mladic (played by Djuricic’s husband, Boris Isakovic) - who’s always followed by his own camera crew - orders the evacuation of Srebrenica. Almost the entire population of the town, some 30,000 people, head for the UN safety zone at a military base some distance away. Overwhelmed, Karremans orders the gates to the camp closed after the first wave of evacuees arrive because it is physically impossible to accommodate everyone, and calls for help from UN headquarters in New York, but his pleas go unanswered. Then, Mladic offers to transport the Bosniaks to safety but insists that the women and children depart together but the men and boys must leave separately. The hapless UN forces, outnumbered and without support from their HQ, have no choice but to agree. And the rest is history, a violent black mark on the record of 20th century Europe, when 8,372 men and boys were massacred less than an hour’s flight from Vienna.
Quo Vadis, Aida? is intensely moving, so compelling and engaging that you almost forget you’re watching a dramatic recreation of events and begin to feel that it’s a documentary, so convincing is the mise-en-scène. You feel as trapped as the refugees in the claustrophobic, overcrowded interior of the camp where most of the action takes place, while Aida runs between her UN employers, her husband and sons, anyone who might help, desperately searching for a way out of their deadly predicament. Jasna Djuricic is extraordinary, totally convincing as Aida’s fear and apprehension gradually rise to the surface. Aida is a mature woman who is pretty cool under pressure until she learns more about the UN’s plans and her desperation increases. We are intimately involved in these changes of emotion and feel them in our guts, such is the power of Djuricic’s portrayal.
Zbanic’s direction, the cinematography and the editing are all superb, combining to create an amazing, shocking picture of a shameful period in modern European history. Rest assured, you won’t see a more affecting film than Quo Vadis, Aida? this year.
Screenwriter: Jasmila Zbanic, inspired by the book Under the UN Flag by Hasan Nuhanovic.
Principal cast:
Jasna Djuricic
Johan Heldenbergh
Boris Isakovic
Izudin Bajrovic
Raymond Thiry
Emir Hadzihafizbegovic
Country: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Austria, Romania, Netherlands, Germany, Poland, France, Turkey and Norway
Classification: M
Runtime: 101 mins.
Australian release date: 17 February 2022.
The writer and director of Quo Vadis, Aida?, Jasmila Zbanic, hails from Sarajevo and was just 20 in July 1995 when the horrific events depicted in her incredibly powerful film took place. As you would expect, the attacks on her home city and the genocidal slaughter that took place in east Bosnia at the hands of Bosnian Serbs had a profound impact on her. Now, she has made a film that looks at the war crimes committed in Srebrenica under General Ratko Mladic and she’s done it by showing us the horrors through the eyes of a Bosnian school teacher working for the UN as a translator. Zbanic explains that, “Personally, Srebrenica is very close to me because I survived the war in Sarajevo which was also under siege and we could have easily ended up as Srebrenica did. I always thought someone must make a film about what happened there, but I never thought it should be me. Yet the story always haunted me. I read everything I could about Srebrenica and only after four films did I feel ready to do this one – knowing there would be many obstacles.” She continues, “After the war and the internal division of Bosnia, Srebrenica remained in the part of the country run by Bosnian Serbs. Our government has many right-wing politicians who are still denying that the genocide in Srebrenica happened. They celebrate war criminals as heroes, denying the Hague International Criminal Court’s decision that what happened in Srebrenica constitutes a genocide.”
Aida Selmanagic (an incredible performance by Jasna Djuricic) is one of a small team of translators working for the Dutch leader of the UN’s blue beret-wearing peace-keeping forces, Colonel Thom Karremans (Johan Heldenbergh). She, her husband Nihad (Izudin Bajrovic) and their two teenage sons get caught up in the mayhem when, despite ultimatums from the UN, General Mladic (played by Djuricic’s husband, Boris Isakovic) - who’s always followed by his own camera crew - orders the evacuation of Srebrenica. Almost the entire population of the town, some 30,000 people, head for the UN safety zone at a military base some distance away. Overwhelmed, Karremans orders the gates to the camp closed after the first wave of evacuees arrive because it is physically impossible to accommodate everyone, and calls for help from UN headquarters in New York, but his pleas go unanswered. Then, Mladic offers to transport the Bosniaks to safety but insists that the women and children depart together but the men and boys must leave separately. The hapless UN forces, outnumbered and without support from their HQ, have no choice but to agree. And the rest is history, a violent black mark on the record of 20th century Europe, when 8,372 men and boys were massacred less than an hour’s flight from Vienna.
Quo Vadis, Aida? is intensely moving, so compelling and engaging that you almost forget you’re watching a dramatic recreation of events and begin to feel that it’s a documentary, so convincing is the mise-en-scène. You feel as trapped as the refugees in the claustrophobic, overcrowded interior of the camp where most of the action takes place, while Aida runs between her UN employers, her husband and sons, anyone who might help, desperately searching for a way out of their deadly predicament. Jasna Djuricic is extraordinary, totally convincing as Aida’s fear and apprehension gradually rise to the surface. Aida is a mature woman who is pretty cool under pressure until she learns more about the UN’s plans and her desperation increases. We are intimately involved in these changes of emotion and feel them in our guts, such is the power of Djuricic’s portrayal.
Zbanic’s direction, the cinematography and the editing are all superb, combining to create an amazing, shocking picture of a shameful period in modern European history. Rest assured, you won’t see a more affecting film than Quo Vadis, Aida? this year.