The decision by the culture minister of Bosnia's Croat-Muslim entity to ban Angelina Jolie from filming her directorial debut in that entity because of the film's script, which reportedly insults women raped in the 1990s war in Bosnia, has provoked strong criticism and protests by local film directors and actors who described the decision as shameful and intolerable.
The local media reported on Friday that the culture minister of the entity's Zenica-Doboj Canton, Zdenka Merdzan, supported the decision of her colleague in Sarajevo Canton, Emir Hadzihafizbegovic, to invite Jolie and provide all necessary conditions for the making of her movie.
Hadzihafizbegovic said he was ready to give permission for the shooting of the movie in Sarajevo Canton.
He said that Bakira Hasecic, president of the Sarajevo Canton association, who had requested that the shooting of Jolie's movie in Bosnia be banned over the film's reportedly insulting script, had fallen for statements about the movie made by the owner of the Serbian PINK television network, Zeljko Mitrovic.
Mitrovic told the media that Jolie was making a movie that was based on a story of a Bosniak woman falling in love with a Serb who raped her.
Bosnian film director Jasmila Zbanic was even more fierce in the criticism of Grahovac's decision.
"We believe that revoking the permit for the film is an act of extreme primitivism and totalitarianism," Zbanic's production company said in a statement.
Commenting on Grahovac's decision, director Pjer Zalica said Bosnia was on the way to becoming a country where artists were denied freedom of expression.
Edin Sarkic of the production company Scout Film, which is Jolie's partner in filming the movie in Bosnia, said the film's US producers had allowed him to send Grahovac the entire script of the film as he had requested.
The entity culture ministry said they had received the film script and that Grahovac was on a business trip, but that he was expected to read the script and possibly change his decision.
In a statement carried by the UNHCR Mission in Bosnia on Friday, Jolie expressed regret over reports that the filming of her movie could be banned at locations in Bosnia, saying that the decision to that effect was obviously based on misinformation.
Grahovac made the decision to ban the filming of Jolie's movie on the territory of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina at the request of the "Women - Victims of War" association, consisting mostly of Bosniak women who were molested in the 1990s war, who told him that the movie was based on a story of a Bosniak woman falling in love with a Serb soldier who raped her, even though they had not seen the script.
Jolie said she very much respected the association "Women - Victims of War" and its work and that she only wanted to be given the opportunity to meet its members to personally clear up all possible misunderstandings about her movie.
