Welcome to Sarajevo

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Movie
German title Welcome to Sarajevo
Original title Welcome to Sarajevo
Country of production USA , UK
original language English , Serbo-Croatian , Bosnian
Publishing year 1997
length 97 minutes
Age rating FSK 12
Rod
Director Michael Winterbottom
script Frank Cottrell Boyce
production Graham Broadbent , Damian Jones
music Adrian Johnston
camera Daf Hobson
cut Trevor Waite
occupation

Welcome to Sarajevo is an American - British drama film directed by Michael Winterbottom from 1997 . The script by Frank Cottrell Boyce is based on the book "Natasha's Story" by Michael Nicholson .

action

The British reporter Michael Henderson went to besieged Sarajevo in 1992 . He and the American Jimmy Flynn look there under the omnipresent fire of snipers and mortars stories that might interest their clients. You get to know the life of the inhabitants of the bombed city and report from the front lines.

Henderson makes a report from an orphanage in which about two hundred children live in appalling conditions. He and the development worker Nina try to get the children out of town. The drive is stopped by the Serbs, who take most of the children away from their carers.

Henderson illegally takes the girl Emira out of the country to adopt her. On the way, his wife tells him on the phone that she agrees. A year later, Emira's birth mother turns up in Bosnia and Herzegovina , as he learns over the phone in London. He is forced to go back alone, the situation there has not changed. A local friend fell victim to a bullet in the back of the head in his own apartment, which came through an open window.

Henderson has mixed feelings about Emira's mother, with whom he has to communicate through an interpreter. She is content to see video footage of her happy daughter in England and to have Emira, who is already fluent in English, on the phone for a moment. She barely knows her daughter, had only seen her twice in the past eight years, and couldn't possibly be a good mother to her. She signs the documents he needs for him. Henderson takes a load off his heart.

On a quieter evening, he and his colleagues have the opportunity to attend a peace concert by Vedran Smajlović in the troubled city.

Reviews

Roger Ebert criticized “ improvisation ” in the Chicago Sun-Times of January 9, 1998 , which mixes fact and fiction. He praised the portrayal of Woody Harrelson.

Richard Schickel found in Time on December 1, 1997 that one could tell from Stephen Dillane's "watchful eyes, his drooping shoulders" and the "monotonous voice" how seriously the film would approach war reporting : what Henderson is doing here is not " planned moral act rather than a desperate improvisation, an instinctive act to preserve oneself as a human being. "

Awards

Michael Winterbottom was nominated in 1997 for the Golden Palm and Gold Hugo of the Chicago International Film Festival . The film received special mention in 1997 by the National Board of Review "for excellence in filmmaking".

The German Film and Media Evaluation FBW in Wiesbaden awarded the film the title valuable.

background

The film was shot in Sarajevo , Skopje and Croatia . The production amounted to an estimated 9 million US dollars . The film grossed approximately $ 340,000 in US cinemas.

The last piece played is the Adagio in G minor by Remo Giazotto , based on fragments ascribed to Tomaso Albinoni . Jonathan Williams played the cello.

Richard Schickel stated that the real Michael Nicholson , then employed by ITN , had reported from no fewer than 15 theaters of war within 25 years.

Filming on location in the summer of 1996 took place just six months after the Dayton Peace Agreement . Nicholson said parts of the video footage used were never seen on television because the audience did not want to be expected. He rated the film as very authentic.

Elizabeth Grice from Telegraph.co.uk accompanied Natasha Nicholson, then 22, in 2004. Jelena Natasha Mihalijcic on her first return to Bjelave since the days of her childhood. Their story led to the founding of the aid organization Hope and Homes for Children .

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b c Richard Schickel: For the Sake of Peace. In: Time . December 1, 1997, accessed on August 27, 2008 (English): “Welcome to Sarajevo is painfully alert to this bitter contradiction. You read it first in Dillane's wary eyes, the weary set of his shoulders, the willed affectlessness of his voice. [...] And you begin to see the goodness of Henderson's deed not as a carefully considered moral act but as a rather desperate improvisation, an instinctive gesture he needs to make in order to assure his survival as a fully human being "
  2. ^ Review by Roger Ebert
  3. ↑ Filming locations for Welcome to Sarajevo
  4. ↑ Business Data for Welcome to Sarajevo
  5. ↑ End credits.
  6. ↑ a b Elizabeth Grice: 'I could never have imagined the change'. In: Telegraph.co.uk . September 12, 2004, accessed August 27, 2008 .
  7. ↑ a b Alan Riding: FILM; Bosnia Revisited, With an Eye on the Future. In: The New York Times . November 23, 1997, accessed August 27, 2008 .
  8. ↑ Elizabeth Grice: 'Abandoned by mother. Father unknown. Instead I have a wonderful life in England '. In: Telegraph.co.uk . September 20, 2004, accessed August 27, 2008 .

Web links

  1. ↑ http://www.indiewire.com/people/int_Winterbottom_M_971201.html (link not available)