Quo vadis, Aida? – Ujazdowski Castle Centre for Contemporary Art

• Quo Vadis, Aïda?

  • directed by Jasmila Žbanić, Austria / France / Netherlands / Bosnia and Herzegovina, 2020, 104'

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• Yugoslav wars, specifically the Srebrenica massacre, as seen by two women: the director and the eponymous protagonist, an interpreter who is desperately trying to name and stop terrifying events that nobody wants to acknowledge. Aida works at a UN base, where thousands of civilians are gathering. Searching for her husband and two sons in the crowd, she believes she’ll be able to convince someone, explain, implore a signature, negotiate a life. This poignant film about the loneliness of a victim has deeply moved the audiences and impressed the critics. The power of Žbanić’s story also lies in its painful contemporaneity. Its script, built around the victims’ helplessness, the perpetrators’ cynicism, the institutions’ weakness and the world’s indifference, keeps repeating itself, as we hunger more and more for solidarity.

[based on the distributor’s materials]