Bill Carter
The Irony of Media Coverage

Bill Carter is a 29-year-old filmmaker and writer who produced and directed the documentary "Miss Sarajevo." He originally comes from Northern California but has lived, worked and traveled all over the world in the last 10 years.

"Miss Sarajevo" came about after he left the United States and his career in the film business with a one-way ticket and a duffel bag of winter clothes to see how he could help in a humanitarian way. After hitchhiking into central Bosnia in the winter of 1993 he found himself amid the siege in Sarajevo, living for the next six months on the seventh floor of the burned Unis towers on Sniper's Alley. He subsisted on a pallet of chocolate baby food for four months and retrieved his water, like everyone, from the river, the sewer or anywhere else they could find it.

Besides delivering food and medicine he became involved with the actors, the radio station and rock 'n' roll scene. This inspired him to have his camera brought over from California. The world of 30-second sound bites didn't seem to have much time to tell of the life of Sarajevo; it was preoccupied with the death. His documentary is the story of the struggle to retain dignity and pride in a time of utter desperation; Carter shot most of the footage himself.

Since its completion he has gone on to write articles for major magazines and has produced another documentary as well as several pieces for MTV Europe concerning Bosnia. And recently he has completed a feature-length script and is working on other writing projects.

Carter grew up on a produce farm, with no television and no outside influences beyond the borders of Tehama County until the age of 12. Before that he had never even seen an airplane or a major city. But since graduating from UC Santa Cruz in 1988 he has traveled to over 40 countries and lived in such places as Indonesia, Trinidad and Taiwan.

After two years in Asia studying Chinese and traveling, Carter worked as a fisherman in Alaska before returning to California to pursue his career in film. After working without pay on independent films, he became an assistant director on national commercials and independent films produced in Los Angeles and San Francisco.