Long-time actress Angelina Jolie is all prepared to make her directing and screenwriting debut in 2011 with a currently untitled love story about a romance between a Bosnian woman and a Serbian man. Unfortunately, she is being forced to defend herself against a group of Bosnian woman who called the celebrity “ignorant” for her new film, according to The Hollywood Reporter. The Women Victims of War, so called because they lived through the 1990s conflict and dealt with sexual violence, have taken it upon themselves to write a letter to the UN refugee agency. In their words:
Angelina Jolie’s ignorant attitude towards victims says enough about the scenario and gives us the right to continue having doubts about it.
The explosive romance isn’t the only part of the production that is under scrutiny. Early rumors of the film’s plot hinted that there would be a rapist love story, upsetting a group of Bosnian rape victims. They got the city officials to revoke Jolie’s shooting permit, though it was reinstated after the country’s minister of culture okayed the script. Still, Jolie cut the shooting schedule down to three days, from ten, and shot some scenes in Hungary.
Jolie, for her part, stated that among people she has talked to, “there’s one person who has a gripe. The absolute majority of the people, population, the cast, prime minister, president have been extremely supportive.” She also notes that 95% of the cast had lived through the war. She hopes the protesting women will withhold their comments until they have actually seen the film.
I know nationality is a touchy subject over there, but it sounds a lot like the usual bunch of people we have here in the States who get upset about things well before they come out, upon which it’s revealed that things aren’t anywhere near as bad as they made them out to be. At this point, all they’re doing is giving the new director some free publicity.
[via The Hollywood Reporter]
