Jolie Launches Her Movie in Croatia
Hollywood star Angelina Jolie on Friday attended Croatia's premiere of her directorial debut "In the Land of Blood and Honey", a wartime love story situated in neighboring Bosnia.
Unlike in Sarajevo, where Jolie attended a gala showing of her film before several thousand people on Tuesday, the Croatian launch was more intimate, in a movie theatre to some 500 VIP invitees.
However Jolie, who arrived to Croatia without her partner Brad Pitt, had to leave shortly after walking the red carpet, to travel to France, local media said.
Dressed in a long-sleeved orange evening dress, the 36-year-old Oscar-winning actress greeted several hundred fans and gave autographs before the screening.
Jolie's film, shot in 2010 with a number of actors from the former Yugoslavia, tells the story of a Muslim woman and a Serb man who have a fling before Bosnia's 1992-1995 war.
They meet again when she has been taken prisoner by a Bosnian Serb army unit commanded by her former lover.
It had sparked controversy in Bosnia as a number of war victims' groups had voiced concern that it would not correctly present their plight. But after seeing the movie most eventually hailed it as objective and sincere.
However many Bosnian Serbs reacted angrily, accusing Jolie of being biased against them and portraying them only as villains.
Bosnia's war between its Croats, Muslims and Serbs claimed some 100,000 lives. Some 20,000 women were raped during the conflict, according to the government's estimates.
"It is not an artistic master-piece but it is important since it brings into focus an important and very painful issue of women raped during war," said Damjan Horvat, a 40-year-old lawyer.
Mirjana Buric said the film was "very touching but sometimes even brutal".
"We also went through war so it might be better understood" in the region, the 35-year-old told AFP.
Croatia was the scene of a brutal four-year war in the 1990s, when Zagreb forces fought against Belgrade-backed rebel Serbs who opposed the country's independence.