The story, directed by Micahel Winterbottom, is based on a true story, follows Michael Henderson and his news team, ITV, to war-torn Sarajevo. It's 1992 and the city has just seen its worst fighting as Bosnian Serbs try to derail the country's new independence with artillery bombardment. While there, Henderson encounters Flynn, a US TV journalist, and Annie, a freelance writer covering her first war. Henderson and his new company eventually come across an orphanage near the front lines and are so saddened by the scene that they choose to make it front page news. Henderson's involvement is so deep that he makes plans to take one of the children, Emira, back to England, illegally, with the help of an American aid worker. .
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I am going to talk briefly about the history of the Bosnian War to give you an understanding about this film. .
Before its independence, Bosnia-Herzegovina was one of the parts of the former Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. At that time, roughly four million people lived in Bosnia, and consisted of three main ethnic groups: Slavic Muslims (forming 44% of the population), Serbs (31%), and Croats (17%). Yugoslavia was first founded after World War I, but disintegrated during World War II. After the war, Yugoslavia was remade as a Communist state and held together largely by the strength of its dictator, Josip Broz Tito. When Tito died in 1980, tensions between the three main ethnic groups quickly mounted throughout the early 1980s. In1990, elections in Bosnia resulted in a governing group of three ethnically-based parties which corresponded to the three major ethnic groups. Muslims and Croats in the governing body favored independence for Bosnia-Herzegovina, while most Bosnian Serbs did not. In a referendum, over 63 percent of Bosnians voting chose independence. In April 1992 Bosnia-Herzegovina was recognized as an independent state. In the spring of 1992, after its offensive in Croatia had ground to a stalemate, Serbia launched a war of aggression against Bosnia.