Welcome to Sarajevo

A film set during the war in Bosnia. Michael is a reporter covering Sarajevo for British television. The siege is under way; there is no water, no power and little food, and there are snipers in the streets. Michael films an orphanage outside the city. The report is broadcast and nothing changes. After a while he drops his professional distance and decides to get one of the children out of the country. What the film is interested in is reporting: who counts as news, which footage goes out, and what the report accomplishes. In one scene the director places real archive footage inside a staged one and the two cannot be told apart. The narrative does not draw the large picture of the war; it looks at one reporter and the daily condition of a few people. The source is a book by a British correspondent who worked in Sarajevo. Stephen Dillane plays Michael, Woody Harrelson the American reporter and Goran Visnjic the local fixer. Marisa Tomei is in the cast. Michael Winterbottom directed. Part of it was shot in real locations shortly after the war ended. A hard example for anyone who likes war films and stories about reporting. Before you watch, know this: the film uses real war footage and shows civilian deaths directly.