Friday, October 15, 2010

Angelina Jolie Film Project Meets Opposition in Bosnia

I hope to return to regular blogging in the next few days; in the meantime, here's an update on actress Angelina Jolie's controversial film:

Jolie: People should 'hold judgment' until they see Bosnian film

I don't know enough about the project to have an opinion yet.

3 comments:

Srebrenica Genocide said...

I haven't read the script, but if her movie is trully about the love between a raped Bosniak woman and her Serb rapist, then Jollie should be ashamed of herself for even thinking to shoot something like this. But again, I haven't read the script and I don't put my trust in local media too much. Let's see how will all this turn out.

sarah said...

kirk, Dan,

As far as I can understand, and I have been following this from Sarajevo, what happened was that TV Pink, a Serb-owned tv station wanted to boycott Jolie's film, because it wanted to avoid having the Serbs depicted as rapists.

Thus, they created a rumour that the film was about a raped Bosniak girl who falls in love with her Serb rapist.

The association fo women victims of war reacted very emotionally, and went to the minister, who, instead of opening an inquiry, decided on the spot to cancel the licence to film there.

Then all of the cultural scene in Sarajevo, the media, and the actors themselves who are Bosnian, all reacted against this.

The following day, Jolie issued a statement through the UNHCR saying that such version was false and asking for a meeting with the Women to make it clear.

This was in fact an attempt to boycott the film. Just think, Angelina Jolie is not merely a pretty face, she is an intelligent and committed woman, and that is why she chose Bosnia for her first film as film maker.

As far as I could understand the story is in fact about boyfriend and gilrfriend separated by the war. The script is not yet known, but soon a final version will be submitted to the authorities in Bosnia.

Shaina said...

There are a few articles on justwatch-l about the whole incident.
It looks like Jolie got the permit back after the country's culture minister read a copy of the script.
http://listserv.buffalo.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind1010&L=JUSTWATCH-L&T=0&O=D&P=129851


According to Bosnian officials in an article on Balkan Insight, the main instigator behind the rumor that the story was a love affair between a rapist and his victim were officials from TV Pink Bosnia, which is owned by TV Pink in Serbia. As you might recall, TV Pink was originally the project of Mrs. Milosevic back in the 1990s.

http://www.balkaninsight.com/en/article/serbian-media-mogul-accused-of-undermining-jolie-s-film