The trailer for Angelina Jolie’s directorial debut, a Bosnian War drama titled “In the Land of Blood and Honey,” premiered online earlier today.
In addition to directing the film, Jolie also penned movie’s script, which tells the love story between a Serbian man and a Bosnian-Muslim woman who are forced apart in the 1992 Bosnian conflicts.
Reuters reports that the nature of the film’s plot was so volatile a Bosnian women’s group campaigned against it, claiming that it would portray a Bosnian rape victim falling in love with her Serbian rapist.
Following the protests, which happened a year ago, Bosnian officials briefly suspended the film’s permit in October but later reversed course after Jolie asked people to withhold judgment until the movie was finished and they could see the final version.
“The film is about the experience that a lot of people, on all different sides, have as war takes its toll . . . 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 told Entertainment Weekly back in May.
Although In the Land of Blood and Honey is technically the first feature film Jolie has directed, it isn’t her first time behind the camera.
In 2007, the 36-year-old Salt star directed the documentary “A Place in Time,” an experimental project that captures three minutes across the world, edited to a 70-minute story that features fellow celebrities like Anne Hathaway, Djimon Hounsou and Olivier Martinez.
Angelina Jolie ‘s In The Land of Blood and Honey is set for release in the US on December 23rd. Check out the trailer for the film below: