Welcome to Sarajevo
- Original title
- Welcome to Sarajevo
- Year
- 1997
- Running time
- 100 min.
- Country
- United Kingdom
- Director
- Screenwriter
- Cast
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- Stephen Dillane
- Woody Harrelson
- Marisa Tomei
- Goran Visnjic
- Emira Nusevic
- Kerry Fox
- Emily Lloyd
- James Nesbitt
- Juliet Aubrey
- Kerry Shale
- Frank Dillane
- See all credits
- Music
- Cinematography
- Producer
- Genre
- Drama | Bosnian War. Based on a true story
- Synopsis
- A startling examination of the Bosnian war of the mid-1990s and the role of journalists in covering it, this film was based on real-life journalist Michael Nicholson's book Natasha's Story. Like Nicholson, cynical journalist Henderson (Stephen Dillane) is one of the rat pack of reporters looking for gore in the streets of besieged Sarajevo. He is outraged when grandstanding reporter Flynn (Woody Harrelson) helps local citizens remove the corpse of a mother gunned down on a family outing. But the next day, Henderson is among the journalist vultures at a grisly scene, and he has to tell a little girl that both her parents were killed. When his story is demoted by his television network in favor of a celebrity puff piece, Henderson is angry. At the behest of his producer, Jane Carson (Kerry Fox), he visits a local orphanage. Henderson becomes deeply involved with the plight of the children and starts documenting their individual stories even as his employers express increasing disinterest. Henderson campaigns to get the kids out of Yugoslavia, with the help of an American aid worker, Nina (Marisa Tomei). He promises a girl named Emira (Emira Nusevic) that he'll take her back to his home in England. To make good on his vow, he must risk both his career and his life. He adopts the child and she is happy in England. But he must return to war-torn Sarajevo when her birth mother, who had abandoned her, demands her daughter back. (Michael Betzold: All Movie Guide)
- Awards
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1997: Cannes Film Festival: Nominated for Palme d'Or1997: Chicago Film Festival: Best Film1997: National Board of Review: Special Recognition
- Critics' reviews
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"The power comes from Winterbottom's rigorous sense of storytelling, which manages to show and tell terrible tales without telegraphing emotionalism"
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"Using an almost seamless combination of documentary and fictional footage, Winterbottom provides a vivid picture of life during wartime -- so vivid in fact that it is often difficult to watch"
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"For all its apparent immediacy, winds up less affecting than a more poetic or roundabout approach might be."
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"What is so impressive about Welcome to Sarajevo is its cool restraint: Like the best of journalism, it never stoops to sensationalize or sermonize, but merely observes."
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