Seite - 145 - in JRFM - Journal Religion Film Media, Band 07/02

Festival Review: 35th Fribourg International Film Festival | 145 ruled by corruption and brutality. Even if, unlike True Romance, Zheltaya Koshka has no happy ending, its protagonist still seems to win: he refuses to dehumanize others and reminds us that without fictionality, without the ability to tell stories and to be affected by them, human beings forfeit their humanity. Another recurring theme in the films selected for the international com- petition is the struggle about and for children. In the black comedy La noche mágica (Bad Christmas, AR/UY 2021) by Gastón Portal, which was award- ed the Special Prize of the International Jury, a thief becomes friends with the girl whose house he tries to burgle on Christmas night. This friendship brings to light a dark, terrible family secret, and the thief functions almost like a divine authority in order to bring about justice. Asa Ga Kuru (True Mothers, Naomi Kawase, JP 2020) also deals with the topic of family or, more precisely, with the question of the definition of “true” motherhood. The film, which was awarded the Ecumenical Jury Prize, sensitively recounts the story of adoptive parents who one day are called by their child’s birth mother, who asks for money. What at first looks like blackmail soon turns out to be a desperate act by a young woman who was pressured by her parents to give birth to her child secretly and to put it up for adoption. But now she would like to see, get to know and love her son. This film is visually remarkable above all for the softness of the natural light that graces char- acters and landscapes at the same time. It manages, without ever becoming pathetic, to create a strong emotional bond between the audience and the boy’s “true” mothers. Although children only appear prominently at the end in Jasmila Žbanić’s Quo Vadis, Aida? (BA/AT/RO/NL/DE/PL/FR/NL/TR 2020), their central role must not be overlooked if one wants to understand the ethical and political power of the film. Žbanić’s forceful work won the COMUNDO Youth Jury Prize and the Audience Prize. Aida, played by an outstanding Jasna Đuričić, works as a translator for the United Nations and accompanies us through the terrible events and wrong decisions that resulted in the Srebrenica mas- sacre and the killing of more than 8,000 Bosniaks. The film is set apart from many other war films by providing a woman’s view on the spiral of events that, through the complicity of the United Nations, led to the latest geno- cide in European history. At the same time, it is also a memorial film that not only asks us not to forget, but also guides us to reflect on how to deal with terrible memories. Quo vadis, Aida? Where are you going, Aida? Why is she returning to Srebrenica several years after the events of July 1995? How www.jrfm.eu 2021, 7/2, 143–148