Angelina Jolie has been given back a permit to film in Bosnia that was briefly withdrawn because of rumors that her movie featured a rape victim who falls in love with her assailant, her producer said Monday.
Permission to film had been withdrawn last week, with the government citing incomplete paperwork
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Jolie was given back the permit for her first project as a director after the country's culture minster was given the script in an attempt to assure him the rumors were false, said Edin Sarkic, Jolie's Bosnian producer. The minister did not immediately return a phone call seeking comment.
"It's a big thing for Bosnia that such a mega, mega star is coming to Sarajevo."
The Oscar-winning actress is shooting the film in Budapest. Her production company said it was a love story between a Serbian man and a Bosnian Muslim woman who meet on the eve of the Bosnian 1992-95 war, which killed 100,000 people.
The Association of Women Victims of War protested Jolie's production after hearing rumors that the film's main characters — a Bosnian woman and a Serb man — were a rape victim and rapist.
Culture minister Gavrilo Grahovac pulled the filming permit Wednesday.
Sarkic said that the newly restored permit will allow Jolie and her crew to start filming in Sarajevo in November. They are currently filming in Hungary. He said the whole controversy was "unnecessary".
"There are many twists in the plot that address the sensitive nature of the relationship between the main characters and that will be revealed once the film is released," she said last week. "My hope is that people will hold judgment until they have seen the film."