Culture Minister Gavrilo Grahovac has given permission for the shooting of Hollywood star Angelina Jolie's directorial debut in the Bosniak-Croat Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, lifting the ban he himself issued three days ago, Edin Sarkic of the Sarajevo-based production company Scout Film confirmed to the press on Saturday.
Sarkic said he had received verbal permission from the federal ministry for the shooting of the film, whose working title is "Nameless Love Story". The shooting has begun in Budapest.
"I have been given a verbal confirmation that I will receive a written permit on Monday. I will wait until Monday and get down to work," Sarkic said.
Sarkic said that Scout Film had to send the script to Minister Grahovac so he could see for himself that it was not a story that degrades women raped in the 1992-1995 Bosnian war, as the owner of the Serbian Pink television network, Zeljko Mitrovic, had told the media after his negotiations with Jolie on providing production services in Serbia had ended in failure.
The Bosnian NGO "Women Victims of War", which gathers Bosniak women raped during the war, believed Mitrovic's story and asked Minister Grahovac to ban the shooting of the film, which he did. His decision prompted reactions from Bosnian media, film directors and actors, who described it as shameful and unacceptable.
