- Hello and welcome to a special Q and A recording
of Quo vadis Aida,
one of the 50th official selection titles
at the 45th Toronto International Film Festival.
Thank you to our audiences to joining us.
As an organizations still impacted by COVID-19.
We need the support of our audiences
so that we can continue to present films
to future generations
and to preserve these important voices.
My name is Dorothy Rick
and I'm tips curator of Central and Eastern European Cinema,
as well as the lead programmer for discovery.
I am thrilled to be here with Jasmila Zbanic
director of Quo vadis Aida.
This film plays as part of contemporary World Cinema,
which is generously sponsored by Sun Life.
It is eligible for the people's choice award.
You can vote for as many films as you like @tiff.net/vote.
Jasmilla, thank you for joining us.
It is so wonderful to see you
and thank you for your beautiful film,
which made such an impression
on our entire programming team.
Welcome.
- Thank you. (bleep)
I'm really happy that you were able to organize this
and I can say hello like this to the audience.
So I'm sorry that I'm not there,
but I hope time it'll change soon so that we can meet.
- Yes, we all do.
Well I want to start
by asking you a few questions about the film.
You, it's your fifth feature
and you of course have a long history of making films about,
about Bosnia specifically.
Can you tell us about the inspiration
for telling this specific story?
- You know, since fall of Srebrenica in 95,
I really wanted to do something.
I was not still a filmmaker,
but I always write, wrote about it.
I read everything I could and then story was growing in me,
and to be honest,
I was hoping that somebody else
will do film about Srebrenica
because it's such a huge issue
and you know, 30,000 people were expelled from their houses
and each person had their own, you know, it's own stories
so it's really difficult to find a way,
but the story of this woman was something
that I, at the end I decided to follow.
She's a fictional character,
but I talked to many women of Srebrenica
and I made kind of combination on many things
that I learned about it.
So yeah, the, unfortunately the inspiration
came from this huge emotions and pain that I was witnessing
when I talked to them.
- So your writing progress came from interviewing
and you develop the character as you spoke to people
specifically in Srebrenica.
- Yeah, I talked to many women,
I watched all this,
you know, witnessed documents,
then at the end I decided, this is my story
because she is between two worlds,
United nations, because she's able to,
lessen some of the meetings
and know more than ordinary Bosnians,
but on the other hand she's Bosnian
and she had the same destiny like everybody else.
So this ambiguity was interesting for the film.
At the beginning I thought, you know,
because political issues around Srebrenica
were also very interesting and I thought maybe I should do
the film about this because it's mind blowing
what was happening at that time.
you know, how many political leaders
were deciding about destiny of these people
and they didn't have a clue what's going on.
And it tells also about our world today, you know,
so many political decisions are being made
and we have no idea what's going on.
So this was also very interesting for me,
but then I thought, okay audience has to connect
with their hearts to characters and to this story.
And that's why you know I thought,
should I do a man as a main character,
but at the end I was closest to women, to Aida.
- I, since we're on the topic of Aida,
can you talk about casting Jasna
and how you chose her for this role?
She's really incredible in the film
and Boris as well, as Hamdija, she's fantastic.
I understand they're married also?
- Yes yes, they are husband and wife.
I met them a few years ago
when I did my film "For Those Who Can Tell No Tales,"
which was also in Toronto.
And, we you know, I love their work.
They are amazing actors.
They are also professors of acting
and they, yeah, they're just living the acting,
life in arts of acting.
I remember watching there "Chekhov" theater piece,
which was six hours long, but you don't feel it's this time.
They are so good in it.
And when I wrote it, you know,
when I'm writing, like I don't really think of actors.
I imagine I am imagining my characters,
but when I finished, I gave it to a producer to read
and both of us were just immediately saying,
okay, this is Jasna Duricic, she is really the one.
And for Mladic we had a lot of discussions
because everybody knows how he looks like.
And then at least in our region,
everybody knows who Mladic is,
but then we thought, you know,
maybe we should not see him.
Maybe we cameras should always be behind him,
but then he thought we should not make 'em,
you know, mysterious figure out of him.
He is human being he is war criminal, but he's a human being
and we have to show him like that.
So then we thought, okay, Boris Isakovic is the one
because he has this, you know, he, he's an actor
who can cover all territory of, character.
- He was incredibly powerful and to be honest,
when I was watching the film the first time,
I wasn't expecting to see Mladic
or any of the generals on screen.
So when he really appears it was, I think the moment
when I was watching the film where I thought like,
oh, okay, there, there's some sort
of a shift happening here.
I think this is more Personal than I imagine somehow.
And that really came through, especially in the,
in the scene, you deal with the, the interview
when they have the representative from the refugee,
the refugee camp come in to meet with the general,
it's incredibly powerful. Did this exact scene happen?
Was this a real meeting?
- Yeah. You know, when we were,
when I was writing the script,
I had to follow a lot of things
that were, that really happened.
Also, I had to modify some stuff for the film,
you know, to keep the facts, but also to be sure
that audience will be able to follow the story, you know,
not to be worried by repetitions and so on
so like these meetings with representatives
were happening several times you know,
with Karremans and Mladic in hotel Fontana,
but I thought, okay I need to put him in one.
So it's a combination of these meetings that happened.
And actually you can find them on YouTube.
Many of this dialogue of Mladic,
is just a transcript really.
So he was saying these sentences,
and that was the behavior that Boris and I started with,
but then I thought, okay you know,
and it Boris did his own language,
which was needed for this story.
- The other question I have specifically
about representation, you know,
there are so many stories
about how the United nations failed the people
and you have a few of these,
and I'm thinking specifically of one
where the United nations soldier
outs the young boy who is dressed like a girl to escape
were these real stories as well, that you heard from people?
- Yes, these are the stories that I got from witnesses,
from documents that I read and some stories I got
by talking to people, unfortunately this happened,
you know, UN, the position of UN was very complicated.
They were in a way abandoned by, uh, the headquarters
and it was a political decision
to just, you know, give up Srebrenica
But they didn't tell them.
I, you know, as a Bostonian, I was very angry on UN
and how they behaved and how they let people go.
And then when I started researching,
I realized there is a difference between, you know,
this headquarters and commanders and people who were there,
like, the one 18 years old-- - With children
- They were 18 years old you know,
and it was their first trip abroad,
they didn't have a clue where are they,
so but, you know, that doesn't excuse
the Karremans and Frank,
and because there were cases where UN was
in a way abandoned by political decisions,
you know, that big guys didn't want to get involved
or give us support, but there were some actually,
a case of a Canadian who
invited all civilians and even soldiers.
And it happened in Croatia during the 95 storm operation.
And this commander said, "okay all people come in
and I don't let anybody out.
I don't let soldiers inside to talk to people."
So he managed to save all civilians.
So even when we're talking about political decisions
about commanders not being able to act
because they didn't have a thing,
I still feel we as a human beings have freedom
and possibility to act as human beings,
even in a smallest category which is given to us,
you know, if we have enough empathy,
if we have enough solidarity, you know,
so I think even if we are living in difficult times,
we are many political decisions are not in favor of our,
human structures and ruining our institutions
that are supposed to, you know,
that are supposed to protect us.
I think still have a lot of freedom to,
to behave like human beings.
- I agree.
I'm thinking now of
what I think is the most beautiful film in the scene.
and probably for me, the most difficult to watch,
which is at the end, when the women are going
to look at the different bones
to try to identify their relatives.
I really like,
(sighs)
I, and I'm wondering how it was to shoot this scene for you.
And in fact, what was the hardest scene to shoot?
- Yeah, this scene was very specific
because it was the last scene of the film,
that we shot.
It was, you know, we had so many actors
from all over the world
that making the schedule to film
was a nightmare.
So we had the scene shot on 11 of July,
which is a year of which is the date of anniversary
It was by accident.
And, you know, all day, all crew was very silent
and respectful.
And then we had the scene on that day.
And I, we decided not to show Jasna
where the extras not to tell her there are the bones
and we just follow her with camera,
and then she finds them, she finds them.
So she really didn't know where the bones are.
There is this closet she can recognize,
and she was walking and it was distraught.
And then this You know, everybody was crying on the set
really me and my camera woman, Christine Meyer
behind the camera.
and then we thought, okay we have to do another one,
you know, just to be covered by,
you know, something happens with the material,
but, you know, we shot second one and we thought,
no, that's one, was it,
that was it, this other one doesn't make any sense
Yeah, that was the only one which we had.
- I can't, it's shocking now to hear that
that's what you shot on July 11th,
also, that must've been incredibly powerful.
Wow. Uh, I honestly Jasmila,
I wish that we could continue talking
with you for another hour.
I especially wish that you could be in Toronto
with our audiences.
I know you have such fans here.
This is your third film playing like a festival,
and I wish we could welcome you,
but you'll be back.
And hopefully everything will be back to normal soon.
And I just wanna thank you for being with us.
I'm incredibly moved by what you just said.
I don't even remember what I just said.
(chuckles)
- No, thank you so much
and yeah, stay safe and healthy,
and this is really, yeah we are together in this
and we will overcome it.
- Until we meet again.
- Yes (chuckles)
Bye bye.