Join us for a World Cinema Series film screening/discussion illuminating the theme “Wartime Lives: Enduring and Transcending Violence and Occupation” by analyzing the message and impact of the film Quo Vadis, Aida? (Bosnian, 2020).
Quo Vadis, Aida? (lit. Where are you going, Aida?) is a 2020 Bosnian film written, produced and directed by Jasmila Žbanić. An international co-production of twelve production companies, the film was shown in the main competition section of the 77th Venice International Film Festival. It was nominated for Best International Feature Film at the 93rd Academy Awards and has won the Award for Best Film at the 34th European Film Awards.
The film dramatizes the events of the Srebrenica massacre, during which Serbian troops sent Bosniak men and boys to death in July 1995 led by Serbian convicted war criminal Ratko Mladić. Named for its protagonist, Quo Vadis, Aida? exposes the events through the eyes of a mother named Aida, a schoolteacher who works with the United Nations as a translator. After three and a half years under siege, the town of Srebrenica, close to the northeastern Serbian border, was declared a UN safety zone in 1993 and put under the protection of a Dutch battalion working for the UN.
The discussion of the film will be led by Christopher DeRosa, Associate Professor in the department of History and Anthropology and Marina Vujnovic, Professor, in the department of Communication.