Jolie wants to meet Bosnian victims

2010-10-15 20:00

Sarajevo - Hollywood star Angelina Jolie said on Friday that she wants to meet a group of war victims to clear up any misunderstanding after Bosnia revoked her licence to film this week.

Her license to shoot scenes in Sarajevo and the central town of Zenica in November was cancelled when the Women Victims of War (WVW) association complained after media reports the film would depict a love story between a Muslim victim and her Serb rapist.

"I have great respect for all the work of the WVW association ... and I would like the opportunity to speak with them to personally clear up any misunderstandings about this project," Jolie said in a statement issued through the UN refugee agency, the UNHCR, in Bosnia.

She added that part of the reason to make her first movie as a director was to remind people of what happened during the 1992-95 war in Bosnia and to give attention to the survivors of the conflict that left some 100 000 people dead.

"My hope is that people will hold judgement until they have seen the film," she added.

Bakira Hasecic of the WVW, whose members are all wartime rape victims, told AFP on Friday that she would gladly meet with Jolie.

"We would like her to show us the script so we can see if it contains elements that falsify history and the truth," she said.

Hasecic has not seen the script yet and the WVW complaints were based solely on the press reports.

A local production company working with Jolie on the project told AFP on Thursday that they had sent the script of the as yet untitled movie to the culture ministry of Bosnia's Muslim-Croat Federation.

A representative of the company was confident they would get their filming license reinstated and insisted that the film was not a rape love story.

"It would be a shame for all of us on the project and the local crew in Sarajevo, if unfair pressure based on wrong information were to prevent us from shooting in Bosnia," Jolie's production company for the project GK Films said in a separate statement on Friday.

- SAPA