Angelina Jolie Hopes 'Blood And Honey' 'Isn't Just A History Lesson'

'It isn't just a political film, it isn't just Bosnia,' director of 'In the Land of Blood and Honey' tells MTV News.
By Kara Warner

Angelina Jolie on the set of "In the Land of Blood and Honey"
Photo: Ken Regan / GK Films

Although Angelina Jolie's directorial debut, "In the Land of Blood and Honey," is a harrowing, unrelenting drama set around the atrocities experienced and committed during the Bosnian War, Jolie swears that her goal in making the film and telling this story is not to teach anything or promote any agenda.

"I hope for the audience watching that it isn't just a history lesson, it isn't just a political film, it isn't just Bosnia," she told MTV News recently. "We tried to tell a dramatic story, we tried to make a good film with great actors, we tried to just give traditional dramatic storytelling, and somehow in that, we also layered all these other things and it's a part of it.

"Even if you're not particularly interested in history, which I can't imagine because it's important, but if [you want to see something] just for filmmaking or just to see performances or just to see a story, an emotional relationship story, that's this film."

Nominated for the Best Foreign Language Film Golden Globe, it highlights the horrors of ethnic conflicts that have occurred far too often throughout history — in this case, the Bosnian War. The story revolves around the relationship between two Bosnians on opposite sides of the conflict, Danijel (Goran Kostic) and Ajla (Zana Marjanovic), and the devastating toll it has on their lives.

Jolie raved about the experience she had during production, calling her crew "a family," which made us wonder if the first-time director is ready to go back and direct another film.

"Oh, I don't know," she said. "I'm still very shy [about that]. I still can't believe I'm even here and we did it."

Check out everything we've got on "In the Land of Blood and Honey."

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