Hollywood star Angelina Jolie said that her film about the Bosnian war should be a “wake-up call” for the world to act in time to prevent atrocities like those now happening in Syria.
Bosnian war film should be a wake-up call for the world
Ms Jolie and her partner Brad Pitt arrived in Berlin to attend the premiere of her directorial debut film In the Land of Blood and Honey, which was screened in a sports hall before an audience of some 5,000 people.
Greeted with standing ovations, Ms Jolie broke in tears when she got on the stage after the screening.
“To see you receiving it so well means a world to me. I feel so deep for all of you in this country,” said Ms Jolie, dressed in a long black dress, with a brief “Thank you” in Bosnian.
Earlier, Ms Jolie said she was “satisfied” with the film, a story of a Muslim woman and a Serb man who have a fling before Bosnia’s 1992-1995 war only to meet again when the woman is a prisoner in a unit of the Bosnian Serb army commanded by her former lover.
“I feel very strongly about it (the film) and I believe that its core issue – which is the need for intervention and need for the world to pay attention to atrocities when they are happening – is very, very timely and especially with things that are happen-ing in Syria today,” Ms Jolie told journalists.
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay warned that “the nature and scale of abuses committed by Syrian forces indicate that crimes against humanity are likely to have been committed since March 2011”.
Ms Jolie said that it “is very important that this film is out at this time”.
“If this film points the finger at anybody it is the inter-national community, so I hope it remains a wake-up call for them,” she said.
Muradif Hatonic, 77, said he was “deeply moved”.
“It brought me back to war years. I was in hell again. As if I was telling them my war experiences,” Mr Hatonic said.
Many women with tears in their eyes said they were “shocked”.
“I lived through the war but I was spared the horrors other women suffered. Thank you Angelina for speaking about Bosnia like this,” said 30 year-old Suzana Omeragic.
The film has already had a special preview screening in Bosnia for war victims’ organisations as a number of them had expressed concern that it would not correctly present their plight.
Most eventually hailed the movie as objective and sincere.
But in a Serb part of Bosnia many reacted angrily, accusing Ms Jolie of being biased against their ethnic community which they say she has portrayed as villains. In a protest against a distributor’s refusal to show the film in cinemas, a Serb woman from the western town Prijedor organised a private screening last weekend with Jolie’s approval.
“We will do that for anyone who wants to have a private screening. And we hope that we encourage the people to see it somehow,” Ms Jolie said.