GERMANY: Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt dazzle at Berlinale premiere of Jolie's directorial debut, 'In the Land of Blood and Honey'

Record ID: 220721

  • Title: GERMANY: Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt dazzle at Berlinale premiere of Jolie's directorial debut, 'In the Land of Blood and Honey'
  • Date: 12th February 2012
  • Summary: BERLIN, GERMANY (FEBRUARY 11, 2012) (REUTERS) (*** FLASH PHOTOGRAPHY ***) VARIOUS OF EXTERIOR OF 'IN THE LAND OF BLOOD AND HONEY' PREMIERE VENUE U.S. ACTOR BRAD PITT GETTING OUT OF CAR AND OPENING DOOR FOR 'IN THE LAND OF BLOOD AND HONEY' DIRECTOR ANGELINA JOLIE / JOLIE GETS OUT OF CAR / COUPLE HOLDING HANDS AND WALK OVER TO FANS VARIOUS OF PITT AND JOLIE SIGNING AUTOGRAPHS JOLIE AND PITT WALKING BACK TO CARPET JOLIE TALKING TO FANS AT CARPET PITT GOES BACK TO FANS WHO ARE CHANTING HIS NAME JOLIE GOING INSIDE PITT GOING INSIDE FANS LOOKING THROUGH WINDOW AT PITT AND JOLIE
  • Embargoed: 27th February 2012 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Germany
  • Country: Germany
  • Reuters ID: LVA1LUNZX6QJUBQHFSHL27UEB11G
  • Story Text: Hundreds of fans waiting for up to three hours in sub-zero temperatures were rewarded when Hollywood's hottest couple, Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt took a turn on the red carpet.
    Pitt was in town with partner Jolie, whose film 'In the Land of Blood and Honey,' had its Berlinale premiere on Saturday (February 11).
    The couple, both in evening dress, ignored the cold long enough to give their fans their 15 minutes of fame before disappearing inside for the presentation of Jolie's directorial debut.
    The film tells the story of an impossible love affair in the Bosnian war of the 1990s, it features local actors and was shot once in English and once in the local languages.
    The story starts as a young Serb man and Muslim women dance together. An explosion brings the war crashing into their relationship and the two are forced to choose sides in a conflict that would become known as the worst atrocity to take place on European soil since World War II.
    "It's the bloodiest conflict in Europe since World War II...and as I researched it I became really... I was really quite angry about what had happened for almost four years, forty minutes away form Italy," Jolie said just minutes before the screening at Berlin's 62nd International Film Festival.
    Jolie's focus is the story of this couple, but it is, in her words, a film that aims to challenge the international community and their sometime inaction, a story so that people don't forget what happened and a story about how war changes people and all they have known.
    "How did this happen, how did we not intervene. So I feel is very important and also the themes of this war and what we can learn form this war are universal and I think we can study history to not repeat it," Jolie said.
    Told by a woman with predominantly women protagonists it is also an attempt to grapple with the statistic that up to as many as 50,000 women were raped in Bosnia during the war, leading eventually to the acknowledgment of rape as a crime against humanity by the Hague war crimes tribunal.
    Alma Terzic, who plays one of the women in the film interned in a Serb rape camp, was gushing in her praise of Jolie's attention to the story and cast.
    "Well actually the first time when I read the script I Was thinking it was somebody from Bosnia-Herzegovina write it, because I didn't know who the director was. So I think this was a great movie. Because it was so truthful. So sometimes I was just thinking she was with us from 1993 to 1995," the young actress from Zenica in Bosnia said.
    "It was great to film for her because she is so open-minded and she is helping you when you are actually working on the role with that kindness, with that supporting which helps you develop the character, because it is not everyday in Bosnia-Herzegovina Angela Jolie comes!"
    The film has drawn fire from Bosnian Serbs, who claim it is an biased retelling of the war that places them as the sole villains of the piece.
    Jolie has always maintained it is artistic interpretation and there are many ways to tell a story, a telling sometimes helped by looking in from the outside.
    "Being that I don't have a dog in the fight, there is no side I am on. It is just that I am trying to observe to make a fair balance and I hope that we reached that, we certainly tried to," she said.
  • Copyright Holder: REUTERS
  • Copyright Notice: (c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2012. Open For Restrictions - http://about.reuters.com/fulllegal.asp
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