Dear Petar
My name is Callan Walsh and our firm, Endeavor Group, represents
Angelina Jolie. She is aware of the ongoing media reports in the region
regarding the film
In the Land of Blood and Honey, and would like to release the following statement:
Some Serbian news and other outlets have in recent days attacked our film
In the Land of Blood and Honey
and I wish to correct the false statements contained in these reports.
Considering the subject matter and sensitivities involved, it is
dangerously irresponsible to publish and repeat these inaccuracies.
* It has been falsely reported that the film claims 300,000 people
died in the conflict. Neither this figure nor any specific figure
related to deaths suffered in the conflict appears at any point in the
film.
* I have never called for the abolition of Republika Srpska, and
nothing similar was discussed during a recent meeting with President
Obama.
If you have any questions, please contact me at this email address or at the phone numbers listed below.
Thank you,
Callan Walsh
January 29th, 2012 2:18
Angelina with an old Serbian woman in Bosnia
Angelina Jolie sent an official letter to
Association of Serbian Journalists sharply protesting against ” false reports of Serbian media on her debut movie ”
In the land of blood and honey” portraying it as ” an anti-Serb propaganda.”
She strictly denied that film claims ” 300.000 people died in
conflict” also rejecting that she has ever called for ” the abolition of
Republika Srpska ” as Serbian media reported that caused an extensive
media campaign against her in Serbia afterward and earned her a status of ” persona non –grata” in this Balkan country.
” Some Serbian news and other outlets have in recent days attacked our film
In the Land of Blood and Honey and I wish to correct the false statements contained in these reports ” writes
Callan Walsh form “Endeavor Group” representing Angelina Jolie. She adds:
” Considering the subject
matter and sensitivities involved, it is dangerously irresponsible to
publish and repeat these inaccuracies. It has been falsely reported
that the film claims 300,000 people died in the conflict. Neither this
figure nor any specific figure related to deaths suffered in the
conflict appears at any point in the film. I have never called for the
abolition of Republika Srpska, and nothing similar was discussed during a
recent meeting with President Obama.
Angelina’s Balkan nightmare begun after Serbian daily Kurir published
a series of articles accusing her of anti-Serbs propaganda and
spreading hatred toward the Serbs, reportedly funded by Saudis that
invested $10 million in Jolie’s project.
William Dorich, a journalist and publisher from Los Angeles flamed the Serbian media war against Jolie claiming to Serbian daily
Vecernje Novosti that the famous actress was chosen as a screenwriter and director because of her prejudices toward Serbs.
“Her father, Hollywood actor Jon Voight,
attended Archbishop Stepinac High School in White Plains, New York,
built in 1950. and named after the Croatian Catholic priest convicted of
crimes against Serbs and Jews during World War II. This is perhaps the
key of an anti-Serb campaign of Angelina Jolie.”
Mr Dorich, the author of 6 books on Balkan history including his 1991
book, Serbian Genocide 1941-45 accused Jolie of manupulating the death
of
Bosnian couple a Serb Bosko Brkic and Muslim women Admira Ismic, known as Bosnia Romeo and Juliet killed by a sniper on May 19, 1993.
” They were assassinated as they tried to
escape the Muslim side of Sarajevo by crossing the Vrbanja Bridge for
safety on the Serbian side of the city. In their dying embrace they
remained on that bridge for several days. The media, like vultures,
manipulated their deaths and the ugly visual image for the benefit of
their front page stories and nightly news. “
He observes that actress ” uses this Serbian bombing as the beginning
of her film, ignoring the real start of the Bosnian Civil War when
Muslim terrorists crashed into a Christian Serbian church during a
wedding in Sarajevo, telling the guests that “Serbs were no longer
allowed to display their centuries-old flag because Bosnia was now a
Muslim country.”
He stresses that the Serbian Orthodox church ” received its share of
blame in the media and in this film, no connection is made to the late
Serbian Patriarch Pavle who led over a million Serbs in protest marches
that were the largest and longest in decades against the Milosevich
government.
” During an interview with the Swiss Federal
Parliament on December 10, 1992, the Patriarch told officials: “800 Serb
women were documented as repeated rape victims in 20 camps operated by
Muslims and Croats.” The patriarch also cited the Yugoslav State
Commission for War Crimes on August 2, 1992—the same day Newsday’s
“death camp” stories went on American newsstands that identified
locations at Sarajevo, Tuzla, Bugojno, Bihac and Slavonski Brod where
Serb women were confined, raped and murdered by Croat and Muslim
soldiers.
Emir Kustirica, one of the most famous Balkan directors and Bosnian
Muslim that converted into Orthodox Christianity a few years ago
ironically called her ” the world’s greatest filmmaker and intellectual
phenomenon of the 21. century” taking acount Jolie’s statement that “
Wesley Clark and Richard Holbrooke helped her with the script”
“Angelina Jolie, came to her own numbers of
raped and killed. Twenty years after this war, she remains the
portparol of the idea that 250,000 people were killed, including Serbs –
but with a little exception because no one mentions Serbs.” said
Kusturica to Serbian media.
Serbian media warns that the famous actress intentionally tried to
involve Serbia into a “film war” marking the sodiers of Republica
Srpska with military coats of of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.
Marjorie Gubelmann
New York, NY
Founder and CEO Vie Luxe International http://www.vieluxenyc.com
Fussy Critic Career & B&H Related Comments:
At the
PGA, Brad described Angelina as being "decisive" and a "general", but in
my view "impulsive" and "emotional" would be equally apt.
Brad is clearly the more careful and image-conscious of the two. His
statements, as vague and artsily pretentious as they frequently are,
seem carefully calculated at maintaining his wholesome, thoughtful,
gentlemanly image (even if he has at times displayed a puzzling, ungentlemanly willingness to allow Angelina to be attacked without rushing to defend her; in
sharp contrast to how he swiftly back-pedaled from his comments that he
was bored during his marriage.) His
career choices have been successfully aimed at burnishing his art house
credentials. He has been quite haughtily dismissive of blockbusters,
saying flippantly in Cannes that he can't be counted out for
Mission Impossible and then again to Backstage that he just wasn't interested in them -- never mind that
World War Z is not only hoping to be a blockbuster but a blockbuster
trilogy.
Angelina
on the other hand, is more open, honest and direct in her answers.
There is no evasiveness, no jesting, no irritating smart-ass responses.
She is sharp and articulate even though she has a tendency to leave her
sentences unfinished. But she is also more reckless and stubborn with
her film choices. Exhibit A would be
The Tourist.
She stuck with Florian von Donnersmarck whose resume consisted of just
one small acclaimed film and then committed without first
reading his finished script. Her choice of the project was motivated by
the desire to give her children a nice vacation in Venice and that's
exactly how it ended up looking to critics -- that she and Johnny went
on a paid vacation in an ineptly directed Hitchcock wannabe.
Burnishing her resume and earning critical acclaim is clearly not as much of a concern for her. Von Donnersmarck said she "
follows her own feeling, holds her own counsel,"
but this approach hasn't really served her well. To-date, despite all
the awards and nominations she has earned, she has yet to star in a film
that has gone on to even contend for Best Picture. Brad's almost
obsessive attention to detail and carefully calculated strategy has
unarguably yielded much more successful results.
Perhaps
as a direct result of watching her last two films fail to deliver on
their full potential, she has become more hands-on and choosier about
the people she works with. Although
Salt went on to be a Box Office hit, it was less successful critically and commercially than
Wanted. She expected it to be more Bourne but it ended up more 60s Bond. She told
CinemaBlend's Katey Rich, "We’re very rushed today, there’s a very fast pace, very fast edit. ...You don’t kind of indulge in
moments like they used to. And I think it’s too bad."
I suspect she had a hand in Sony's decision not to bring back Phillip Noyce and I fully expect her to be more involved with
Salt 2's script and direction. She had an obvious hand in Disney considering Aronofsky for
Maleficent and was also clearly behind getting Fincher for
Cleopatra.
She is aiming for directors with proven track records and even Robert
Stromberg has two Oscars in the area where Maleficent will seek to
differentiate itself from the pack. All the knowledge she has gained as
a new filmmaker will undoubtedly
also help her in evaluating her projects and the people involved in
them.
Many of the Top Critics noted that she has obvious talent behind
the camera. As The
L.A. Times' Kenneth Turan wrote, "a career like (Clint Eastwood's) could be in the offing".
But she is at the peak of her beauty and popularity now
and time at the top, as everyone knows, doesn't last very long. Her philanthropy and her ability as a global
celebrity to focus the world's attention on neglected issues is enabled
by her success as an
actress. She may have earned respect for her
directorial debut, but it is far from being a huge success whether as a political or artistic exercise. This
simply
isn't the time for her to cut back on her film output as an actress or to refine her
skills as a director. All that can wait until she's in her late 40s.
Domestic box office receipts for
B&H
have been tepid despite the most aggressive and exhaustive promotional
push she has ever undertaken for any of her films -- or even all of them
combined. Its best hope may be Europe which at least knows where the
Balkans are, as well as DVD and ancillary sales. As it is, GK Films
already has two other films that aren't close to covering their costs:
Johnny's
The Rum Diary and Scorcese's
Hugo. Graham King
has strong ties and made multiple films with both and there seems little
question Angelina will also be loyal to him both as an actress and filmmaker.
But for all
the love she has showered on the former Yugoslavia, the feeling is not
being reciprocated as she is now being painted as an enemy of Serbia and Serbs have been systematically attacking her and the film on all movie and social media sites they can find. The Bosnians haven't united behind her
either. One might also ask, where are the actors she
has championed and bent over backwards to promote, bringing them along
to every
function from the White House to the Golden Globes? Why are they not
defending her from
the attacks by the Serbs? And where were Zana & Co when she was
under attack by the Bosnians? In all her interviews, I have never heard
Zana praise Angelina to the degree that Angelina has waxed rhapsodic
over her and the rest of her "great cast" and "family."
There
is no question Angelina's heart is in the right place and she has the
best intentions, but she may have been too naive with her romantic
notions that her film could encourage dialogue and be a part of the
solution to a conflict that is still so passionately divisive. So far,
her film is only uniting those Bosnians and Serbs that have a shared
interest in bashing it. Some (but not all) victims of the war and
rape camps have been supportive, but simply providing them with a
collective cathartic exercise was not a key objective in making this
film.
Her principal goal was to bring the world's
attention to violence against women and lack of intervention, the secondary goal was to encourage dialogue and healing. She managed to get the Obama administration's attention in a huge coup that should yield substantive benefits for the region -- although it is debatable at this point whether they are
capable of recognizing any debt to her.
The American
public was a key target as they were indifferent to the war as it was
happening but with well under $1M in ticket sales, she is not making
much headway in raising awareness in the U.S. She could have done a few
things to broaden the film's appeal but her desire for authenticity was
at cross purposes with her goal of getting people in to theaters.
In
her press conference in New York before it opened, she expressed
confidence that the film's low budget would help them weather decisions
that defied conventional box office wisdom. But with the weak box
office numbers so far, she has now had to reckon with the harsh reality
that a film about a war no one cared about, with actors no one heard of,
in a foreign language, with heavy and unrelentingly brutal content and
no crowd-pleasing arc, simply wasn't going to sell during these tough
economic times no matter how many interviews she gave or magazine covers
she graced. She couldn't have everything her way, some compromise was
necessary.
She also didn't give audiences an easy film to fully understand and comprehend. She started with an already
fairly complex story and further demanded of her audience that they pay
very close attention in order to spot the hints and snippets of dialogue
that would allow them to understand the lead characters' true
intentions and feelings. Even among top critics, many failed to fully
grasp the intricacies and nuances of her story (Spoiler) -- that Ajla
was no longer in love with Danjiel and that she purposely allowed
herself to be captured in order to be a spy for the Bosnians; that she
was a cipher because she had to keep him from discovering her secret;
that in the end she was successful in her mission but paid a high price
for it.
It's a very smart and original film and it was
very frustrating to read reviews by people who obviously didn't get it
and criticized parts of the film as a result. Those who did -- like Ken
Adams and Pete Hammond -- gave it raves, but unfortunately they were in
the minority. A simple concession to present key portions of her story
more clearly would have allowed the film to be much better received and
could have led to more awards that would have in turn boosted the box
office.
Angelina has every reason to be very proud of the film but her refusal to compromise in
any area cost her dearly. As much as she loved mixing her passion with her day job, she needs to reevaluate her approach.
She will undoubtedly be carrying forward a lot of lessons learned from
this endeavor. Everyone -- critics and audiences alike -- will have much higher expectations
both of the films she stars in as well as films she may make having seen
that she has genuine talent as a director and is capable of writing
a smart and complex script. They will expect her to set high standards whether she is front or behind the camera. At the same time, she will be wiser about how to tackle and sell films with difficult or politically sensitive topics.
But unless she plans to
direct
and star in her planned new Afghan-based project, writing and
directing can wait another 10 to 15 years until she is no longer in
great demand as an action star and her box office
drawing power has waned.
