- Title: Acclaimed film on Srebrenica genocide breaks resistance to it in Serbia
- Date: 29th December 2021
- Summary: NOVI PAZAR, SERBIA (DECEMBER 28, 2021) (REUTERS) PEOPLE EXITING CINEMA (SOUNDBITE) (Bosnian) PRESIDENT OF MOTHERS OF SREBRENICA ASSOCIATION, FADILA EFENDIC, SAYING: "It is not good to hear one side only. One should hear both sides, to grasp what people have been through, what had been happening. When they (the spectators) comprehend the truth, they will feel a relief, they
- Embargoed: 12th January 2022 11:47
- Keywords: arts and trauma manslaughter in Bosnia and Herzegovina politics and film politics in Serbia
- Location: NOVI PAZAR AND NOVI SAD, SERBIA / SARAJEVO, BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA
- City: NOVI PAZAR AND NOVI SAD, SERBIA / SARAJEVO, BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA
- Country: Serbia
- Topics: Arts/Culture/Entertainment,Europe,Film
- Reuters ID: LVA003FA3CAPL
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9
- Story Text: The director of a cultural center in a largely Muslim part of Serbia has appealed for an acclaimed movie about the massacre of 8,000 Muslims by Bosnian Serb forces in Srebrenica in 1995 to be shown across Serbia.
More than 1,000 people watched "Quo Vadis, Aida?," named Best Film in the 2021 European Film Awards, in two screenings in the town of Novi Pazar on Tuesday (December 28) - the first time it had been shown in any part of Serbia.
"We are appealing for the film to be screened across Serbia; it's absolutely senseless for it to play only in Novi Pazar," said Husein Memic, whose center showed the movie.
Jasmila Zbanic's movie has also not had a public showing in Bosnia's autonomous Serb Republic, which has thrown Bosnia into turmoil by opposing a law making it an offense to deny that the Srebrenica massacre constituted genocide.
Both Ratko Mladic, commander of the Bosnian Serb forces in 1995, and Bosnian Serb political leader Radovan Karadzic were found guilty of genocide by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia for their roles in the Srebrenica massacre.
Zbanic said many cinemas and distributors in other parts of Serbia and in Bosnia's Serb Republic had wanted to show the film, but feared recriminations or reprisals.
"My intention was never to divide," she said.
"My intention was to tell the truth, and for people who don't know about Srebrenica or who even deny Srebrenica to sit and watch it as a movie about a mother who wants to protect her two kids. Because that's what happened there."
Serbian state television, RTS, has always shown previous prize-winning films.
But following appeals to air "Quo Vadis, Aida?," it said it would not make programming decisions under media pressure.
Boris Isakovic, who plays Mladic in the movie, said he was disappointed that it was being viewed through a political lens, not as an artistic creation.
(Production: Fedja Grulovic) - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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