“Miss Sarajevo” by Bill Carter

Bill Carter’s “Miss Sarajevo” is a 30 minute documentary made in 1995 about the life and spirit of defiance of young people and artists within besieged Sarajevo. Carter first came to BiH as an aid worker with “The Serious Road Trip” and then decided to make this documentary about the people he met in Sarajevo who were “determined to live as normal a life that they could under the most difficult and dangerous conditions”. A tribute to the vitality of the human spirit to survive, the idea of the film is best embodied by the 13-year old Alma Čatal who is playing and singing with her friends in a destroyed car and who appears in the beginning, middle and end of the film with her smile and direct and spontaneous communication. “Miss Sarajevo” was released in 1995 and won several film awards.

The title refers to the “Miss Sarajevo”- beauty contest which took place in 1993 in the besieged city, which ended with the contestants showing a banner reading “Don’t them let them kill us”. The film was produced by U2 singer Bono and features the song “Miss Sarajevo”, written by Brian Eno and U2 and performed by Bono (under the name of “The Passengers”), with the participation of opera star Luciano Pavarotti. Bono had met Bill Carter in 1993 through their cooperation for the satellite connections between Sarajevo and U2’s Zooropa tour. The video of the “Miss Sarajevo” song was edited in two versions: one which is entirely based on footage from Bill Carter’s movie, and another one which combines clips from the documentary with images from Bono’s first public performance of the song during the “Pavarotti and Friends” concert in September 1995 in Modena.