Bosnian war film should be a wake-up call, says Jolie

Hollywood star Angelina Jolie and her partner Brad Pitt arrived here on Tuesday for the launch of her directorial debut, a Bosnian wartime love story, that had sparked controversy in the Balkan country.

"Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt arrived at Sarajevo airport at noon (1100 GMT) on board a private plane," a border police spokeswoman told AFP.

Later Tuesday the 36-year-old Oscar-winning actress was to address journalists and take part in a gala screening of her movie "In the Land of Blood and Honey," organisers said.

The movie will be shown in a sports hall to an expected audience of some 5,000 people.

The film has already had a special preview screening in Bosnia in late December for war victims' organisations as a number of them had expressed concern that it would not correctly present their plight.

Most of them eventually hailed the movie as objective and sincere.

The film tells the story of a Muslim woman and a Serb man who have a fling before Bosnia's 1992-1995 war only to meet again when the woman is a prisoner in a unit of the Bosnian Serb army commanded by her former lover.

While he is initially able to protect her, once he is transferred away she suffers abuse and rape at the hands of the soldiers.

Bosnia's 1992-1995 war, between its Croats, Muslims and Serbs, claimed some 100,000 lives.

Tens of thousands of people were held in prison camps, where torture and abuse were commonplace. Some 20,000 women were raped during the conflict, according to the government's estimates.

Jolie's directorial debut, filmed in 2010 with a number of actors from the former Yugoslavia, had its international premiere on December 5 in New York. It goes on general release in Europe this month and will also be screened at the 62nd Berlin film festival.

On Friday, the movie will have its official debut in neighbouring Croatia.