BUDAPEST, Hungary — Angelina Jolie is no stranger to gossip, though she usually ignores the wild rumors
and falsehoods.
This isn't the usual.By Anthony Breznican, USA TODAY
In an exclusive interview, she says ugly accusations about the
untitled Bosnian wardrama she wrote and is currently directing in
Eastern Europe are unequivocally false, and says she intends to
handle the drama about the conflict respectfully.
"It's very simple," she says during a break in shooting Friday.
"There was a nasty rumor that it was about a relationship that
started with a rape and torture — and it's not."
The rumor spread quickly through the region late last week,
outraging an activist group for female victims of the conflict and
leading Bosnian authorities to withdraw her permit to film part
of the movie there.
On Monday, Bosnia's cultural minister, Gavrilo Grahovac, changed
his mind and reissued Jolie's permit after her local producer,
Edin Sarkic, showed him the script so he could see for himself
that the rumors were untrue.
More than 100,000 died in the 1992 war that exploded between
ethnic groups in the former Yugoslavia after the collapse of
Communism. Serbian soldiers raped tens of thousands of
Bosnian-Muslim women, leading to war-crimes trials, and wounds
that remain painful today.
Jolie, who has worked for years as a goodwill ambassador with
the United Nations, says she doesn't want
to shy away from horrific details of that conflict. Still, she says she's not making a twisted fantasy and critics
speculating otherwise are misinformed.
She confirms there is a romance in the film between a young Serbian man (played by Goran Kostic) and
a Bosnian-Muslim woman (actress Zana Marjanovic) but says, "It's a relationship that starts in the scene
we're shooting today — in a club, before the war. The main characters begin with lovely, happy, beautiful
singing and dancing. It's a normal relationship in that way, how it begins."
The idyllic prelude shatters. "The film is about the experience that a lot of different people, on all different
sides, have as war takes its toll," Jolie says. "A couple that maybe would have lived a certain life, had
the war not begun, end up having a very different story because of the war."
Jolie doesn't blame war survivors for being concerned. "Everything is to be expected when you do films
about heavy subject matters that have to do with something so sensitive and so recent," she says.
"It's absolutely to be handled as delicately as possible."
Angelina, accompanied by husband Brad Pitt, continued the filming on location in Hungary, while present at the set were Serbian actors Nikola Djuricko and Goran Jevtic wearing Serbian army uniforms.