This appendix contains mini-essays on all the films classified in chapter four as being ‘about journalism’ made for the cinema and released in the United Kingdom between 1997 and 2008.

1997

Welcome To Sarajevo (Michael Winterbottom, 1997, 103 minutes)

This is the first of two films about war correspondents made by Michael Winterbottom in the period 1997–2008, both based on actual events. It is not generally regarded as Winterbottom's best film – for one critic, ‘the second half falls flat: the film moves with the characters and the narrative, supporting them and offering no resistance … a stiff-upper-lipped tearjerker based on the true story of an ITN journalist who resolves to rescue and adopt a child from Sarajevo’. Welcome To Sarajevo is flawed, but successfully conveys the surreal tragedy of the Bosnian-Serb siege of what had been a prosperous, sophisticated city at the heart of Europe. In particular, the director uses an innovative and chilling blend of enacted and actual news footage to convey the horror of the massacre of civilians, and the death by sniper of a mother on her way to her daughter's wedding.

The story is that of a disillusioned TV news reporter who, despite the professional requirement for objectivity and detachment in his coverage, becomes increasingly engaged with the tragedy of war and its impact on civilians. We begin with scenes in which the journalists comment with war-weary acceptance on the increasing commodification of their reportage, and the debased need for ‘infotainment’, meaning in this context suitably graphic images of people dying.