Bosnian victims of sexual violence have slammed actor-turned-director Angelina Jolie as "ignorant".
BOSNIAN victims of sexual violence during the 1990s war have slammed "ignorant" actress-turned-director Angelina Jolie, who is shot a film about Bosnia that has sparked controversy.
"Angelina Jolie's ignorant attitude towards victims says enough around the scenario and gives us the good to keep having doubts about it," the Women Victims of War (WVW) association said in a letter published on Monday.
In the missive to the United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR), for which Jolie is a goodwill ambassador, the association said its members were "profoundly concerned" over the movie.
Jolie started filming her directorial debut, a love story between a Moslem woman and a Serb man set against the scope of Bosnia's 1992-1995 inter-ethnic war, in October in Hungary.
After initial problems with the permit to take part of the film in Bosnia, due to complaints by victims' associations to local authorities, Jolie eventually had her team film only a few panoramic views earlier this month without being present herself in the Balkan country.
According to the synopsis, the film is a wartime love story between a Serb guard in a prison camp and a Muslim detainee, his old girlfriend.
It caused controversy in Bosnia when local media reported rumours that the movie was the history of a Muslim rape victim who falls in bed with her Serb attacker.
Jolie had sent the government a transcript of the hand which her Bosnian production company said did not admit any such rape love story.
Jolie said at the sentence she cherished to see the associations that had complained about her picture to make up any misunderstandings, but the meeting never took place.
"We have insisted to play Angelina Jolie since we don't need to be wrongly presented in the world . Our voices are worthwhile and we should have got lots more respect," the WVW letter said.
"Angelina made a big mistake. We find that she did not act like a real UNHCR ambassador and we think that she has no morecredibility to stay the ambassador," it concluded.
WVW head Bakira Hasecic said Jolie invited the victims to see her in the Hungarian capital but they refused the invitation.
"Crimes were committed here, in Bosnia, and we wish to see her here," Hasecic told AFP.
"We wanted to talk woman to woman. She should have asked after the victims, come (to Bosnia) before the shot to see our voice."
"As far as we are concerned a love story could not have existed in a camp. Such an interpretation is causing us mental suffering," she stressed.
The 1992-1995 war between Bosnia's Croats, Muslims and Serbs claimed around 100,000 lives.
Government officials estimate that at least 20,000 mostly Muslim women were sacked during the conflict.
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