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"I thought, what can I as a film producer, and the film industry specifically, do that isn't just about raising money to send food and shelter, but what relief organizations aren't thinking about or don't have the ability to do? I thought I could bring them what we create, what we live for, what we love. What is so universal."

But in the face of executions and mass rage, and sanitary airstrikes by invisible NATO planes, the idea of flying movies into refugee camps smacked of the Hollywood equivalent of lobbing "happy bombs," yet another phone-it-in campaign by people lucky enough to live the glamorous life, far from here.

"Is this frivolous?" DeFaria, in Los Angeles, remembers wondering. "Is it presumptuous to think we can provide a bona fide distraction? Was this a horribly insensitive idea, or was this wonderfully small and imaginative?"

Baron conferred with the Bosnian ambassador to the United Nations and officials of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, who assured her that the refugees had plenty of blankets and food. What they need is normalization, to know the world is bigger than their camp. More than half the refugees are children, all of them haunted by memories of Serbs at their door, many traumatized by having witnessed massacres and mass burials in their villages. Temperatures are in the 90s and 100s. Martone recalls how in one camp, where there is a single, ramshackle TV propped in a tent, "hundreds are packed in there, thirsty to see images, even this cold, blue haze and static."

That was all Baron needed to hear. Whether frivolous or inspired, she had a movement on her hands, and it needed a name. She and DeFaria decided on FilmAid, abiding by a tradition of celebrity causes that began with the music industry's Live Aid in the mid-1980s, which raised money for famine relief in Ethiopia.

"We have never had any such offers for any other refugee crisis or emergency or refugee camp in the past," says UNHCR spokesman Panos Moumtzis. "This is a first, though it's not a solution. We don't want the refugees to be saying that you are building cinemas and making us live here forever."

The task was daunting: It would require equipment, transportation and technicians. "Movie producers are expert in logistics," Baron says. "It's what we do. It was important to be self-contained, to not drain any of the resources of the relief organizations."

But FilmAid also needed films. Ironically, what seemed like such a simple idea at ground zero was a harder sell in Hollywood. Movie studios were skittish about participating. "There was hesitation on the part of some of them about being perceived as sending movies and not other kinds of relief, like food or shelter," Baron explains. "Also, studios didn't want to be perceived as selling a captive audience on their movies, forcing a group of refugees to watch their films as a marketing thing."

Martone was irate: "That's an aloof and luxurious position to be in," he said of the studios. "Diversion is a luxury we afford ourselves without sacrifice. Why would we deprive it from refugees?" Aryeh Neier, president of the Soros Foundation, a FilmAid sponsor, called to offer a story about the positive results of a film festival in Sarajevo during the siege. "At the time a lot of people thought it was frivolous. Film people wanted to go: Daniel Day Lewis, Jeremy Irons. Writers like Susan Sontag. They weren't allowed on the plane. UNHCR said it wasn't humanitarian aid. But when people are in circumstances of this sort, it's not only the flesh that needs to be taken care of, but the mind and the spirit as well. They want to be full human beings, entitled to things other human beings treat as their daily lives."

When no studio wanted to be the first to step forward, officials from the United Nations, the Red Cross and the Soros Foundation scratched their heads. Finally, Miramax broke the logjam, donating not films, but money. The next day Universal and MGM offered movies, followed by Fox and Steven Spielberg's Amblin Entertainment. FilmAid would soon be offering hastily dubbed versions of "Back to the Future," "The Flintstones," "Pinocchio," "Lost in Space," "Mask" and "ET."

"Non-combative films," Baron said, "hopeful, happy films." But Spielberg's donation was contingent on the stipulation that none of his movies would be shown first. And Disney, long synonymous with "hopeful" and "happy," turned FilmAid down flat. When Baron called an executive at Universal Studios with an update on her progress, she was shocked by her reception. "I thought she'd be excited about this," Baron recalls, "but she was ticked off." Baron asked if Universal could donate more movies. The executive snapped, "I think we've already given you enough."

Before FilmAid's flight to Skopje, Julia Ormond wrestled with the notion of air-dropping celebrities into a real tragedy. Philanthropy is often self-reflexive, more an attempt to feed a desire to be involved, to have acted, than to fill a real need. "One instantly thinks one should send medicine or food," Ormond muses. "But there is a great deal in film that is good, specifically related to children. On the other hand, I'm not sure people like to see actors or celebrities get involved in political issues. It's deemed inappropriate. There's the perception of seeking publicity. But if that's the thing that's going to stop you from doing something helpful, you have to get beyond it."

Next page | Susan Sarandon: "We're solving problems with violence"