QUO,VADIS AIDA? by Bosnian director Jasmila Žbanić, wins the LUX Audience Award 2022. The other two films shortlisted for the award were: Flee by Danish director Jonas Poher Rasmussen and Great Freedom by Austrian director Sebastian Meise. In Strasbourg, the finalists give presentations in front of MEPs. Roberta METSOLA, EP President gives the price to Jasmila Žbanić and pays tribute to Munira Subašić, Srebrenica massacre survivor and president of Mothers of Srebrenica Association.

statement

ceremony

METSOLA, Roberta (EPP, MT, EP President)

REGNER, Evelyn (S&D, AT)

LUX European Audience Film Award 2022 (T)

Lux Audience Award 2022: extracts from the ceremony and statement by the winner, Jasmila Zbanic, director of "Quo Vadis, Aida?" and from Munira Subašić, Srebrenica massacre survivor

Title: Lux Audience Award 2022: extracts from the ceremony and statement by the winner, Jasmila Zbanic, director of &quot;Quo Vadis, Aida?&quot; and from Munira Suba&#353;i&#263;, Srebrenica massacre survivor

SOUNDBITE (English), Roberta METSOLA, President of the European Parliament, Welcome to the Lux Audience Awards. I am very pleased to welcome the directors and the producers of the three powerful films shortlisted for this year's Lux Audience Award.

SOUNDBITE (English), Roberta METSOLA, President of the European Parliament, This Lux Audience Award is unique. It is the only cinema prise awarded by a parliament. Both members of the European Parliament, as well as European citizens, are allowed to cast their votes from across 27 European Union Member States.

SOUNDBITE (English), Roberta METSOLA, President of the European Parliament, - The three Lux Awards nominees share a common message the struggle for freedom, a fundamental value of the European Union.

SOUNDBITE (English), Roberta METSOLA, President of the European Parliament, - May I invite you to applaud here with us today? The president of the Association of the Mothers of Srebrenica and the survivor of the genocide, Ms.. Munira Subasic. We are honoured. We are honoured, truly honoured that you can be here with us today in this house of democracy and freedom.

Roberta METSOLA, President of the European Parliament announces the winner

SOUNDBITE (Bosnian) Munira Suba&scaron;ić, Srebrenica massacre survivor - Ladies and gentlemen, Your Excellencies. It's been 27 years since the genocide in Srebrenica. I survived the genocide. 22 members of my immediate family were killed in the genocide. My husband, my youngest son, whom I loved dearly. I buried two of his bones. I begged dear God to make sure that mothers never experience what we experienced. I prayed to dear God that no mother would ever look for her son's bones again. But while I'm speaking here, unfortunately in Ukraine, mothers are crying, looking for the bones of their sons. They're crying. Russian mothers are crying, too, because it's their children who went to either be killers or to be killed. So I beg of you, stop the war in Ukraine. Stop so that as few mothers in the world as possible suffer. Please stop the suffering. The suffering of a single mother is hard enough. Thank you once again. Thank you all who have voted for this film.

SOUNDBITE (English), Jasmila Zbanic, director of "Quo Vadis, Aida?" - Please, stop the war. Please take care of countries that are not EU who wants to be EU like Bosnia. We are faced with Servian and Croatian nationalism, supported by Putin. We really need the EU to help us, get in the EU and save our region because it will be the next one. Thank you very much.

SOUNDBITE (English), Jasmila Zbanic, director of "Quo Vadis, Aida?" - It gave our film A Second Life because it was so well organised. It was screened in 400 places after our distribution was already finished. And because we distributed film in circumstances of pandemic, it was sometimes in cinemas, sometimes online. It was absolutely wonderful that it was happening now in such a well structured way because there were all these companies with audience and it really helped film to grow, to go in every corner of Europe. So for me, it was absolutely fantastic.

SOUNDBITE (Bosnian) Munira Suba&scaron;ić, Srebrenica massacre survivor - It means a lot. It means for me as a mother that the Europe started to wake up to realise what happened in Srebrenica in 1995. I'm not surprised that we won today because 95 nothing was done to prevent and stop the killings from happening. A lot of countries still deny the genocide ever happened, even though they're proofs from the Bosnian courts, from the tribunal, from the German courts, people still do not accept that a genocide happened.