Bill Carter

Bill Carter
Bill Carter with Bono
Born	1966  United States
Nationality	american
Known for	Editor, Miss Sarajevo
Website	billcarter.cc

Bill Carter (born 1966) is a writer and director. He directed the documentary film Miss Sarajevo, which consists of amateur video material he shot during his stay in the besieged city of Sarajevo. He is the author of Fools Rush In, his memoirs of working for an aid agency during the War in Bosnia and Herzegovina. He teaches journalism and film at Northern Arizona University.

Carter became involved in the Balkan conflict when he was traveling the world after his girlfriend died in a car crash in 1991. After traveling to Split, he joined The Serious Road Trip, a humanitarian aid organization distributing food and medicine to places the United Nations and the Red Cross would not go. Arriving in Sarajevo, he decided to stay with the Sarajevans, inspired by the way they tried to maintain the life they had before the siege began. He saw Sarajevo as key because Sarajevans refused to be divided along ethnic lines with many Serbs joining the defence of the city against the Serb nationalist besiegers. Carter began to do some work for the Sarajevan television, and he managed to get an interview with Bono from rock group U2. Bono, who later admitted that he was deeply touched by Bill Carter's story, heard about the importance of pop music in Sarajevo and said that he would love to play in Sarajevo. Carter quickly concluded that this was too dangerous — not least because the large gathering of fans that would assemble might be shelled by the besieging Serb nationalists. Instead, Carter came up with another way of connecting rock music with Sarajevans; instead of "bringing U2 to Sarajevo" he would "bring Sarajevo to U2", by means of satellite linkups to U2's Zoo TV Tour concerts, giving the people of Sarajevo a chance to tell their story to the world.