SARAJEVO, BOSNIA-HERZEGOVINA (AP) - Angelina Jolie has been given back a permit to film in Bosnia that was briefly withdrawn because of rumors that her movie featured a rape victim who falls in love with her assailant, her producer said Monday.
Jolie was given back the permit for her first project as a director after the country’s culture minster was given the script in an attempt to assure him the rumors were false, said Edin Sarkic, Jolie’s Bosnian producer. The minister did not immediately return a phone call seeking comment.
Mass rape was a taboo topic in the immediate aftermath of the country’s 1992-95 war between Serb and Bosnian Muslim forces but since then victims have formed a group to campaign for their rights, which has become one of the country’s most powerful lobbies.
The Association of Women Victims of War protested Jolie’s production after hearing rumors that the film’s main characters _ a Bosnian woman and a Serb man _ were a rape victim and rapist.
Culture minister Gavrilo Grahovac pulled the filming permit Wednesday.
Sarkic said that the newly restored permit will allow Jolie and her crew to start filming in Sarajevo in November. They are currently filming in Hungary. He said the whole controversy was “unnecessary”.
Bakira Hasecic, leader of the association, told The Associated Press that she had tried to meet Jolie since August, when she first heard the rumors about the film’s plot.
“We expect to meet with her now finally and we hope she will convince us that what we were suspecting and what we were afraid of is not true,” Hasecic said.
Jolie said in a written statement Friday that it would be a shame if “unfair pressure based on wrong information” prevented her crew from shooting her film, whose title hasn’t been publicly released.
“My hope is that people will hold judgment until they have seen the film,” Jolie said.
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