The controversy about Jolie's movie, her first as writer-director, stemmed from reports, apparently false, that it was a love story that involved a Bosnian woman falling in love with her Serbian rapist.
The rumors stem from a furor in July, when a proposed production deal between Jolie and Serbian media tycoon Zeljko Mitrovic, once a close ally of the widow of Serbian strongman Slobodan Milosevic, fell through because Mitrovic believed the movie was anti-Serbian. The stories, which mirror the tensions between the Serbs and the Bosnians that Jolie's movie is based upon, received little attention in the international press at the time.
Jolie says she wants to clear up misunderstandings about her as-yet-untitled film's storyline after Bosnia's most vocal advocate for wartime rape victims said she had not read the script but found what she heard about it to be "insulting."
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Angelina Jolie continues to film her controversial movie about the Bosnian war Wednesday.
"Obviously, any dramatic interpretation will always fail those who have had a real experience. My hope is that people will hold judgment until they have seen the film."
Bosnian Culture Minister Gavrilo Grahovac canceled Jolie's permit to film in Bosnia after protests from Bakira Hasecic, head of the Association of Women Victims of War and herself a rape victim. The group was formed on behalf of the several thousand mainly Muslim women in Bosnia who were raped during the 1992-95 war.
One of the Sarajevo-based producers of the film told AOL News today that no one commenting on the movie has read the script. He said it was "totally not true" that the film's heroine was a rape victim in love with her rapist, but that he could not give any details of the actual plot because of confidentiality agreements.
"All this confusion came from a small rumor that started and everyone believed it without even seeing a script," said Ensar Halilovic of Scout Films. "It turned into a big mess for no reason at all. We're all exhausted by this but we're very confident it will work out."
Halilovic said producers submitted a new application for a filming permit with Grahovac this week and this time included a copy of the shooting script.
"They read it today and nobody got back to us with any negative comments," Halilovic said. "We expect to receive a new permit on Monday."
Halilovic said he believes the rumors originated with Mitrovic, the powerful head of Serbia's biggest television network, Pink Media Group. Mitrovic was once an official in the Yugoslav Left party run by Mirjana Markovic, Milosevic's widow.
Last July, local media, including English-language bloggers, reported that Mitrovic began talking to Jolie's team about helping produce the film but then decided not to because he thought the film was anti-Serbian.
"Previously, I had great sympathies and respect for her name and actions but she's full of prejudice towards Serbs," Mitrovic said in a statement attributed to him in July. "Cooperation with her would open a door of great movie business for us, but I don't want to be part of something that represents Serbs as bad boys."
The website Balkan Insight reported this week that one of Mitrovic's deputies at Pink's offices in Bosnia, Lajla Torlak, told a Bosnian paper that she had seen the film, was "disgusted" with it and urged Mitrovic not to work with Jolie. Torlak reportedly said the film involved a "Serbian soldier who rapes a Muslim woman, cuts off one of her breasts and they fall in love."
The website said that the Pink network, via Torlak, "misled" rape victims in Bosnia about the movie's plot.
Mitrovic, however, issued a strong denial to AOL News today, via his spokeswoman, Barbara Sandic, that he did anything to poison the atmosphere surrounding Jolie's film.
"I had absolutely nothing to do with the rumors," he said.
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Sandic said Mitrovic never met with Jolie personally and only spoke to some of her producers. She said he did make statements that the film was anti-Serbian but said the issue was "blown out of proportion by local papers. He has no hard feelings toward her."Hasecic told The Associated Press that she had heard the film portrayed a rape camp victim falling for her rapist.
"That's not only impossible but the idea is insulting," Hasecic said. "We, the victims, do not want to be portrayed that way and we complained.
Jolie stressed her respect for Hasesic's group in her statement and said she hoped to speak with them to personally clear up any misunderstandings.
"The choice to make a film about this area and set in this time in history was also to remind people of what happened not so long ago and to give attention to the survivors of the war," Jolie said.