Welcome to Sarajevo

In 1992, ITN reporter Michael Henderson (Stephen Dillane) travels toSarajevo, 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 Vinji) 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 Nuevi), 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
Bosnian Serb children and put them on their armed lorry, presumably to repatriate them.
When Henderson finally makes it to London with Emira, Emira quickly becomes a member
of Henderson's family in a comfortable London home. After an ambiguous interval of
perhaps 100 days, Henderson receives word from his former producer, who is still in
Sarajevo, that Emira's mother wants Emira back. Henderson returns to Sarajevo, now riven
not only by the siege but also by internal organised crime, and seeks out Risto, who has
become a Bosnian-Herzegovinian soldier. Henderson recruits Risto to find Emira's mother.
They nearly succeed, but the unstable situation unravels around them and they are forced
to retreat. When Risto is killed by a sniper in his own home, Henderson falls back on Zeljko
(Drazen Sivak), a concierge at the Holiday Inn who Henderson had helped in previous
Sarajevo tours. Zeljko negotiates the streets and road-blocks that lead to Emira's mother.
As prelude to signing the adoption papers, she outlines the reasons she wants Emira back.
She cannot in good conscience bring Emira back to Sarajevo, though, and she signs the
papers.

A running joke in the movie is the designation by a UN official that Sarajevo was only the
14th worst crisis in the world. In the middle of the movie, Harun, a cellist friend of Risto,
says that he would play a concert on the streets of Sarajevo once it is designated the worst
place on Earth. Though he acknowledges the danger, he claims that "the people will die
happily listening to my music." The movie ends with Harun holding a "concert of peace" on
a hill overlooking Sarajevo, playing his cello to hundreds of Sarajevans. Among the
attendees are Henderson, Flynn and several children from the orphanage. Henderson
gives Harun a sad smile; the concert is beautiful, but it also means that Sarajevo had,
indeed, become the worst place on Earth.
The closing credits say that Emira still lives in England.