ESC 1993 SARAJEVO CALLING BECOMES A FILM

One of the most touching moments in the Eurovision song contest history happened back in 1993 when Bosnia & Herzegovina debuted and during the voting we heard for the first time "Good evening Sarajevo, can we have your points please?" by Fionnuala Sweeney in Millstreet. The public in the Green Glens Arena erupted in a spontaneus heartfelt applause when the phone connection was made, with some sound problems to war torn Sarajevo.

Bosnia & Herzegovina's way to Millstreet wasn't a dance on roses. Fazla and his team had to escape from Bosnia on foot during the night hoping not to be shot dead by the Serbs. Sounds quite Hollywoodian as we think about it now but it was the reality back then. Their conductor was ment to floow them later but wasn't able to leave Sarajevo in time to join them due to heavy war, and house conductor Noel Kelehan stepped in.

“An army guide put me into a group with the guitarist and two girls – our back-up singers. Then he told us to run up to the mountains and not get shot. The Serbs were shooting all night long, but it was nothing different to any other time really,” he says. “We were being shot at in the town too!”

Now the whole story from the national final made with zero budget to the qualifying round in Slovenia all the way to the risky travel to the stage in Millstreet becomes a film by Jonathan Ellen. It's a good reminded how things can change and that not so long ago - some 20 years! - Europe was in war and terrible things happened. And not very far from Sarajevo we have the next host country, also torn apart by a war as we speak....

Check out the promovideo here

No, I cannot feel the stars down here from the sky

I can't find the way to rise us up the road

I can only write and send a song to you

To know I'm still alive, oh my love

When the cold and darkness sneak into my bones tonight

I will not allow the fear to push me to the lights

I still have the power to fight them all alone

If you were with me, it's easier would be

The whole world's pain in Bosnia tonight

I stay here to challenge and to fight

And I'm not afraid to stumble and fall

I'll never stop to sing, they cannot take my soul

When the cold and darkness sneak into my bones tonight

I will not allow the fear to push me to the lights

Who will then be guarding, standing all the pain

So the evil one never comes again?

The whole world's pain in Bosnia tonight

I stay here to challenge and to fight

And I'm not afraid to stumble and fall

I'll never stop to sing, they cannot take my soul

The whole world's pain in Bosnia tonight

I stay here to challenge and to fight

And I'm not afraid to stumble and fall

I'll never stop to sing, they cannot take my soul

(One of the sources for this story: Elvir Pelešević)

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Life after Helsinki 2007 Eurovision

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