Hollywood comes to Bosnia (again) (America, mission, muslims, Article)

[Djamila]

Gere to kick off film search for Karadzic in Bosnia

SARAJEVO (Reuters) - Hollywood actor Richard Gere will start searching for war crimes fugitive Radovan Karadzic in a new film due to start shooting in Bosnia this month, a local production company said on Friday.

Richard Shepard's light-hearted thriller "Flak Jacket" will also star U.S. actors Jesse Eisenberg and Terrence Howard, who along with Gere play reporters heading to post-war Bosnia on an unauthorized mission to locate Karadzic.

The film is based on an article written by Scott Anderson, a journalist who reported on the Bosnian war for Esquire magazine.

Edo Sarkic of the Sarajevo-based Scout Film production company said the first 10 days of shooting would be done in Bosnia and the remainder in Croatia.

"We have completed the technical scouting and selected several shooting locations in and around Sarajevo and the 160-member crew will start making the film on September 12," Sarkic told Reuters.

He could not disclose who would play Karadzic.

Bosnian Serb wartime leader Karadzic is wanted along with his military chief Ratko Mladic by the U.N. war crimes tribunal in The Hague over the 1995 Srebrenica massacre of 8,000 Muslims by the Bosnian Serb forces and the 43-month siege of Sarajevo.

His staying at large represents an embarrassment for the international community, NATO and regional leaders.

Reuters/VNU

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Hollywood to portray the real Bosnia
Bosniak Magazine

No longer will Sarajevo be depicted in American movies as the brown field so many Sarajevans recognize from films like Welcome to Sarajevo but have yet never been able to find.

No, Richard Gere has promised the new film Flak Jacket will be something different - filmed in landmark locations throughout Sarajevo including Vratnik, Bascarsija, and Hrasno.

"The first question Bosnian reporters always ask me is: will this be another film in which Bosnia in general, and Sarajevo in particular, will be misrepresented. I want to assure the people of Sarajevo this is not the case," Gere told Bosniak Magazine.

"Sarajevo is without comparrison in this world. It will be depicted as such in this film."

The film tells the story of several American journalists who come to Bosnia to succeed where the United Nations and international community has failed. They plan to locate Serbian leader Radovan Karadzic and bring him to justice for the numerous atrocities committed at his command throughout central and eastern Bosnia and Herzegovina.

[cardero]

We just had an article in our local newspaper why Hollywood is attracted to our New York State Ulster, Sullivan and Greene County areas. War of The Worlds and the newly released World Trade Center were both filmed around here. Robert De Niro owns a house in Gardiner about 5 miles down the road from me.

[Djamila]

Richard Gere has arrived in Sarajevo! He was greeted by a group of several dozen fans at the airport and shooting begins today for the film.

[Random]

Celebrity Buddhists in Bosnia...cool. BTW, Djamila, the new avatar pic is nice.

[Djamila]

Thanks!

Okay, Richard Gere was interviewed by just about every Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian network in the world at the Sarajevo International Airport.

Here's what I've been able to find out:

He plays an American reporter who wants to find Radovan Karadzic, for reasons of both personal celebrity and righteous justice. In Sarajevo, a lot of people assume he is a CIA agent and there is a lot of backlash against this (as there is in much of Europe, kidnappings in Italy, illegal prisons in the East, etc, etc.) - there's a love element to the story, and a lot of "faces Bosnians will recognize will appear in the film".

It's planned to be released as a mid-level big screen movie in the United States - they explained this means it won't have an enormous public advertising campaign but will be shown in most theatres in that country. It will be debuted at the same time in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

No one knows if, in the end, they catch Radovan Karadzic and Gere said he understands it is a very emotional subject for Bosnians about whether or not an actor will play Radovan, who this actor will be - or if his character will not actually be played in the film and involved only through actual news footage.

Video tapes of oth Markale Market massacres in Sarajevo, and the Srebrenica massacre in Srebrenica (both of which Karadzic is indicted for), will appear in the film.