“Quo Vadis, Aida?” is celebrating its VOD release date with an Oscar nomination. Jasmila Žbanić’s war drama is up for Best International Feature at the 93rd edition of the Oscars.
Set in 1995 during the Bosnian War, Žbanić’s third feature tells the story of Aida (Jasna Đuričić), a translator working for the United Nations in the small town of Srebrenica in the days leading up to the Srebrenica massacre, which saw more than 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys slaughtered.
From its tense opening moments to its haunting final scene, “Quo Vadis, Aida?” rarely lets up. We know the story won’t end well, but the drama is as suspenseful as it is dread-inducing.
The Serbian army is getting closer and closer to Srebrenica by the hour, and panic is rising. Aida and others are assured by higher-ups that a plan is in place and civilians will be protected in the U.N. camp. And then the fully-armed Serbian army gains entry to the camp. Aida’s husband and sons are among the thousands of civilians seeking safe shelter there, and she quickly realizes that they are in grave danger, and devises increasingly desperate plans to get them out.
Aida, a former teacher, is used to being the one issuing orders, and as the film progresses and the situation at the camp deteriorates, she finds herself increasingly powerless and at the mercy of her all-male superiors.
Žbanić told us she was drawn to the story by “the pain of the people who had been killed just because they were ‘others’ and the betrayal by those who were supposed to protect us. Only 25 years ago, this genocide happened in the heart of Europe. The United Nations had a mission to protect the people of Srebrenica, but when the Serbian army arrived, they basically let them kill 8,372 Bosnians,” she emphasized. “The shock from the fact that the institution that is supposed to protect us allowed this massacre to happen and that the rest of the world passively watched these killings made me want to tell this story.”
The writer-director added, “I would like audiences to feel the world and life of Aida, and to think how fragile our societies are — how something so unimaginable can come so quickly, and how we humans can deal with it.”
“Quo Vadis, Aida?” is now available on VOD.
