Welcome to Sarajevo
| Welcome to Sarajevo | |
|---|---|
 |
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| Directed by | Michael Winterbottom |
| Produced by |
Damian Jones Ismet Arnautalic Graham Broadbent Paul Sarony Ivo Sunjic David Ball |
| Written by | Frank Cottrell Boyce |
| Starring | |
| Music by | Adrian Johnston |
| Cinematography | Daf Hobson |
| Edited by | Trevor Waite |
|
Production
company |
Channel Four Films
Dragon Pictures |
| Distributed by |
Miramax (United States) Warner Bros. Pictures (Non-US/International) |
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Release date
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Running time
|
103 minutes |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English, Bosnian, Croatian, Serbian |
| Budget | US$9,000,000 |
Welcome to Sarajevo is a British war film released in 1997. It is directed by Michael Winterbottom. The screenplay is by Frank Cottrell Boyce and is based on the book Natasha's Story by Michael Nicholson.
In 1992, ITN reporter Michael Henderson (Stephen Dillane) travels to Sarajevo, the besieged capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina. He meets American star journalist Jimmy Flynn (Woody Harrelson) on the chase for the most exciting stories and pictures. Henderson and Flynn have friendly arguments and differences in the intervals between reporting. They stay at the Holiday Inn, which was the primary hotel for the press in Sarajevo during the siege. After a previous translator proves corrupt and inept, ITN hires Risto (Goran Višnjić) to be Henderson's translator. Their work permits them blunt and unobstructed views of the suffering of the people of Sarajevo. The situation changes when Henderson makes a report from an orphanage located on the front lines (Ljubica Ivezic Orphanage) in which two hundred children live in desperate conditions. After increasingly brutal attacks fail to make the lead story in the UK, Henderson makes the orphanage his lead story to try to bring full attention to the war.
When American aid worker Nina (Marisa Tomei) organises a UN-sanctioned bus-borne evacuation of several orphaned Sarajevan children to Italy, Henderson convinces Nina to include a Bosniak girl from the orphanage, Emira (Emira Nušević), to whom Henderson had made a promise to evacuate. Nina knows this is an illegal act – Emira's mother is still alive and signed no papers authorising the evacuation – but the orphanage director allows it because of the desperate circumstances. Henderson and his cameraman accompany the evacuation under the pretense of covering it as a news story.
Despite a UN escort, Bosnian Serbs hinder the evacuation at several points along its route. The final harassment is the worst – a group of Chetniks halt the bus, forcibly disembark the Bosniak Muslim children and put them on their armed lorry, presumably to repatriate them.
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