Jasmila Žbanić's film about Srebrenica screened in Venice

At the 77th Venice Film Festival, the film "Quo Vadis, Aida?" by BiH director Jasmila Žbanić had its world premiere as part of the main competition program. The director and the film's actors walked the red carpet in Italy, accompanied by sevdalinka. After the premiere, the film will be screened 12 more times during the festival, and from next year it is expected to be shown in cinemas in European countries.

It is a tradition of the Venice Film Festival for the film crew to have musical accompaniment on the red carpet. The songs "Što te nema" and "Ružo moja" performed by Amira Medunjanin accompanied the BiH crew as they walked the red carpet.

At a press conference prior to the film's world premiere, director Jasmila Žbanić said that she wanted to tell a story from a woman's perspective about the suffering in Srebrenica.

"We dedicated this film to the women who lost their sons, husbands, and their closest people. I know some families who lost up to 60 family members; all the people around them and entire generations were simply wiped out. We have many films that speak from a male perspective," Žbanić points out.

The film's story is tied to the fate of Aida, a former professor, who works as a translator for the Dutch Battalion, i.e., UN peacekeeping forces, whose task was to guard the so-called safe zone - Srebrenica. When Mladić's troops entered the city, Aida's husband and two sons seek refuge in the UN barracks in Potočari. Aida tries to keep them there and save them.

The role of Aida went to Jasna Đuričić, who said she prepared for the role for a very long time.

"I prepared for this role in many ways. I think I managed to watch not all, but almost everything that exists about Srebrenica, the suffering... these are documentaries, books, testimonies of victims," reveals the Serbian actress.

However, she added that on the film set, she felt as if she were in Srebrenica, because the space itself was identical to how it was in the UN base in 1995.

The role of war criminal Ratko Mladić is played by her husband, Boris Isaković.

"For my character and the entire film, for anyone who doubts it, it is enough to just open YouTube, especially when it comes to Mladić - the character I play. I insisted that the words that were recorded in 1995 remain the same, I didn't even want to change the order of words in a sentence," says Isaković.

Due to the measures introduced in Italy due to the coronavirus pandemic, most of the crew from Bosnia and Herzegovina were unable to attend the film's premiere in Italy.

The film "Quo Vadis, Aida?" is the first film in a competition program to be screened at a major festival after a six-month corona crisis that led to the cancellation of all major film festivals, N1 reports.