In the Land of Blood and Honey is the dramatic story of two lives, brought together only to be torn apart in the brutal realities of the Bosnian War. Angelina Jolie, Oscar-winning actress and Icon, is behind the camera for the first time. In the movie’s production notes, Jolie and the cast explains the journey they took to realize the full potential of In the Land of Blood and Honey.

Jolie recognized that the different emotions involved with each character’s relationships would require different approaches. “Rade and Goran tended to rehearse,” she recalls. “They wanted to rehearse. They had met and discussed it, and it was their way. That was fine with me. I felt that as they spent time together, and the more they got to know each other, play together, the more familiar they would be.

It wasn’t extensive, but it was the method.” Kostić felt that familial kinship as soon as he and Šerbedžija began working together. “He’s such a huge actor with this enormous body of work. I felt this father-son relationship immediately when I met Rade. I felt this great respect for him. We would spend an hour rehearsing before we would shoot a scene. I’ve worked with a lot of actors of that generation, and they never rehearse. Rade’s different.”

“With Zana and Goran, however, we didn’t rehearse,” says Jolie. “We wanted them to surprise each other. So often, one of them would have information the other one didn’t have. They could have the ability to be really looking at each other for information. We wanted that chess game to always exist between them.

I never encouraged them to be too comfortable with each other. You wanted them to keep a bit of distance so that they weren’t sure.” Kostić felt similarly. “I don’t really want to know what Ajla is thinking or feeling when Danijel is not there,” he says. “It gave our relationship a dynamic.

I knew what Ajla was saying to Danijel, but beyond that…The more we got into it, the more strongly we felt this trust as actors. We were trusted.” That trust was felt strongly by Marjanović as well. “The three of us—me, Goran, Angelina—worked as a team. From day one, it felt like we knew each other for a long time, that we were really good friends. As with any film, you have to feel the trust from your partner. This trust between us was never broken. Once you have that, everything can run smoothly.”

An important example for Jolie became the scene where Danijel discovers that Ajla has been raped. “In that scene, I knew that as an actor, if I was forced to do that in pieces and for too long, it would drain me and I would start to be conscious of my behavior; it would be very painful and not as organic.

We made sure that everything was ready on that day, that the cameras and lights were set, so that Goran and Zana were able to do it all in one go. There’s a cut in the edit, but we did shoot it all in one take. I came in and told them, ‘We’re gonna do this hopefully two times, and hopefully that will be it.

I know that it’s cold, and it will be very difficult, but if you can get into it, feel it, and give me everything you’ve got, I will not make you do this 30 times. It’ll be our job to come to you, to move around you, to sculpt it with the camera and the editing. But right now, give me everything you’ve got.’ We pushed through that morning, and it was a very physically and emotionally challenging morning for both of them. But then it was done.”

Location shooting occurred in Budapest, Hungary. “We wanted to shoot in Sarajevo, but the city doesn’t look like it did then,” says Jolie. “None of Bosnia really does, with the exception of a few pockmarked buildings, because—fortunately—it’s physically recovered. Budapest had a lot of empty space to shoot, and the architecture and landscape looked very similar.

At the time we shot our film, they opened a studio. It was a great place to shoot. But it was important to include shots that were genuinely of the area. There were a few days shot in Bosnia, like in the opening of the film—a lot of wide shots and plate shots. We needed to bring in the beauty of the country, the real landscape.”

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Between 1992 and 1995, the Bosnian war claimed the lives of approximately 100,000 people and drove more than 2 million people from their homes, as refugees or internally displaced persons. In a pattern of “ethnic cleansing,” militias attacked and expelled civilians in areas under their control to create ethnically pure enclaves.

It is against this backdrop that Angelina Jolie is making her directional debut this year with In the Land of Blood and Honey. After securing her script and the financing, Jolie set about assembling the right actors for the jobs. It had always been paramount to approach the casting process with sensitivity and care.

“When the roles were being cast, we had the casting director ask the actors what they’d gone through, what their backgrounds were,” she says. “I wanted to cast a Bosnian Serb as the lead actor, and a Bosnian Muslim or someone from a mixed family as the lead actress. I also wanted men from Serbia willing to work on the project, not just Bosnian Serbs.

That country’s involvement artistically was very important to me.” People from all backgrounds and creeds were asked to come together to tell this story. The first actor to come on board was Rade Šerbedžija. Šerbedžija plays Nebojsa, the Serb general whose invocations of tradition and nationalism have a strong sway over his conflicted son, Danijel.

Croatian Serb by birth and raised in Zagreb, Šerbedžija was known in Hollywood in the 1990s for playing foreign villains. While the character of Nebojsa certainly fell along the villainous spectrum, Šerbedžija sensed something richer and more resonant about him than most depictions of Serb soldiers during the war.

“I had been offered a number of roles in films about the war in Yugoslavia, and had refused quite a few,” he says. But Jolie’s script offered a different take on the war. “Angelina called me and we talked,” says Šerbedžija. “I liked her approach to the subject, and how she talked about it, her motives and her passion.”

For Šerbedžija, the scope was what set the film apart. “I think that the script Angelina wrote has the depth of a Greek tragedy, which is really hard to find in today’s movie making,” he elaborates. “That’s why I hope that by approaching the tragedy from an intimate angle, maybe it will help people understand the war as not one happening to some ‘strange people in a far country,’ but to people like them, complex people that get dragged in. It can also happen to them.”

For the rest of the cast, Jolie kept herself anonymous in order to avoid any coloring of the project for the auditioning actors. “The cast didn’t know who was behind the film, or the size of it; I kept my name off the scripts. I just wanted to know if they were responding to the material.” Zana Marjanović, a Bosnian Muslim who plays Ajla, the film’s protagonist, was convinced that the script was a local creation.

“Those scenes were so authentic. I was almost sure they had to have been written by a Bosnian writer! It seemed so familiar to me.” Such a response to the film’s story was crucial for Jolie. “I had already decided that we wouldn’t make the film unless the actors responded positively.”

Actor Nikola Djurićko, a Serbian who plays Serb soldier Darko, remembers when he discovered that Jolie had written the script and was to direct it. “The casting director said to me, ‘She liked you a lot,’” Djurićko says. “I asked, ‘Who liked me a lot?’ She said, ‘Angelina Jolie.’ I said, ‘Don’t you lie to me!’ It was like winning the lottery, because as an actor in Belgrade, you don’t expect to get an offer like that very often.”

Goran Kostić, a Bosnian Serb who plays Danijel, the tortured soldier who’s caught between his love for Ajla and his loyalty to his father, thought that it made perfect sense for the project to have come from Jolie. “When I first found out that it was Angelina who wrote the script, I was of course surprised. I thought, ‘why does she want to do this?’

Then when I thought about the subject matter and her humanitarian work, I realized that she wants to help the world, so of course, this film fits. It’s a natural progression, the next big step in her work.”

The character of Ajla is a Bosnian Muslim artist, a woman whose expressiveness and lust for life attracts Danijel. Those qualities also leave her confused about her feelings for him once the war starts. Such a complex individual required a performance from someone with a star-like presence. For Jolie, Marjanović has the transfixing qualities of a movie star.

“When Zana’s audition tape came on, I physically leaned forward,” Jolie says. “She’s someone who draws you in. She has something about her that very few people possess on screen. She has a mystery and a strength that I find captivating and powerful. She’s very much a woman to me. She represents what a woman is.

She holds the screen without having to do or say anything. That was so important for the character of Ajla, because she lives so much in silence. The actress had to be so complex and interesting that you could be fascinated by her just standing in a room. Zana has that, I was so lucky to work with such an extraordinarily gifted actress who had such a depth of emotion that she brings to the screen.”

Moviegoers can experience the full story in cinemas around the US on December 23, 2011.

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Every cast member of In the Land of Blood and Honey, which will hit American cinemas on December 23, was in some way directly affected by the events of the war. Each brought their own stories and experiences to the project and enriched their characters and the film with their own histories.

Zana Marjanović was fortunate enough to be able to escape to Slovenia during the war. “I was born in Sarajevo and was only eight years old during the war. My father chose to stay in Sarajevo. The war came as a huge surprise, and no one thought the war would last as long as it did. It’s one of the reasons why my mom took us to Slovenia.

Many Bosnian Muslims emigrated, but my mother believed the war would end the next day, every day. So we waited in the closest country for the war to end, so we could go back home.”

In 2001, Marjanović moved back to Sarajevo where she currently lives. The notion of Ajla being an artist was what Marjanović most personally connected with. Being an artist allows Ajla to be expressive, to share the way that she sees the world, to create. It allows her to be open to new experiences and new ideas.

“An artist feels and perceives things in very specific ways,” says Marjanović, “and leaves his or her expression for others to see.” I like this sense of character for Ajla. Artists are also often very strong yet delicate persons. And the same could be said of Ajla.”

Goran Kostić suggests that it is Ajla who symbolizes the future, whereas Danijel is trapped in the past. “She is everything he is not,” Kostić says. “Ajla is the creative one; she is the one who sees the world. Danijel is always holding back, and she’s always pushing forward. She has a courage and an energy he is attracted to.”

Angelina Jolie sees Ajla in a precarious and almost impossible situation. “There’s a point where Danijel is safety and security. And there’s a point where she has to decide if he’s redeemable, or simply her enemy. She is put in a very different situation, and how she tries to gain the upper hand becomes the chess game of the film.”

Kostić, a Bosnian Serb, had a direct connection to the war, and to the character of Danijel. “Every single Kostić back to the beginning of time was a military person. I’m the first to break this tradition. If you weren’t a general by the age of 45 in my family, you were nothing. I had this really strong feeling growing up about who I was supposed to be. I was even accepted to the military academy, but I turned it down.”

“I was born and raised in Sarajevo. I left for London when I was 20, a year before the war started. At the time, communism was falling, and economically, Yugoslavia was quite strong.

There was a healthy middle class there. So after communism, there was an exciting liberal sense of freedom in the air. While I was in London, the war began. That entire feeling vanished overnight. My girlfriend at the time—she’s my wife now—was with me. We both realized we couldn’t go home because there was no home to go to.”

Being separated from his family made his situation all the more conflicting as the war dragged on. “It was awful. For the first two years, I felt this strange void in myself. I was working as a waiter at the time, but it was always very mechanical. My mind was somewhere else. There was a point where I knew exactly when each British station would hold their news broadcasts.

I had to check the news 24 hours a day. I would jump into empty hotel rooms and watch the news to hear what was happening in Bosnia. Thankfully, my family made it out without anyone being killed or any of our possessions destroyed. I remember talking to my mother on the phone. I can hear the bombs in the distance. All I can say is, ‘Mom, take care of yourself.’

This was the same weekend as a London bombing. And my mom actually tells me, ‘Son, take care of yourself.’ I didn’t know whether to cry or smile! It was the first time where I had to ask, ‘What should I do? Who am I as a man, as the son of a Serbian officer? Should I fight? Who should I fight for?’

I could never come up with an answer I truly believed in. Eventually, I realized that the best thing was to stay away. There was no good fight.” He may not have fought, but Kostić strongly relates his own conflicts with Danijel’s. “I never participated in the war, but Danijel is also not a happy participant,” he says.

“He’s isn’t strong enough to not fight. He’s not in charge of his fate. He’s a prisoner to himself and his circumstances.” Jolie notes how much Danijel is controlled by the forces around him. “By nature of his family and the war, he was put in a position that he isn’t strong enough to refuse or escape, and he doesn’t quite know how to handle it.

He knows there’s something wrong. As he says, he recognizes people. He has trouble seeing an enemy in somebody he went to school with. He questions the war, but is never able to follow through with the questioning.”

“Danijel never became a true man, a free man,” Kostić says. “If we all had the strength to not participate, maybe the war would never have occurred. He allows himself to be pushed and shoved by history, by tradition, by his father. He doesn’t bother to protect himself from these bad dark forces coming over him. He may not pull the trigger initially, but he is just as guilty as those who do.”

Danijel’s inability to behave with any kind of will leaks into his own wishful thinking about his relationship with Ajla. “Danijel is pretending that they have some kind of normal life together,” Kostić says, “but it’s crumbling as time passes. It follows the way humanity deteriorates in Bosnia at that time.

It begins pure and about love, and then starts twisting and turning and getting darker. Danijel starts out feeling protected with Ajla from the world outside. She is like a mother to him, but eventually it’s not about love anymore.”

Marjanović recognizes the conflict and strain that the relationship has on Ajla’s choices. “She’s constantly in conflict. She’s not in love with the enemy; she’s in love, and later, that person becomes her enemy. There’s never a single moment when she ‘turns,’ but it slowly evolves throughout the film.

Ajla always has a sense of justice throughout, even if her decisions are very emotionally difficult. There’s never any hate or vengeful feelings, but she knows that her actions are right. It’s about sacrificing something you love for the greater good.”

Image Courtesy of   http://www.inthelandofbloodandhoney.com

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Set against the backdrop of the Bosnian War that tore the Balkan region apart in the 1990s, In the Land of Blood and Honey tells the story of Danijel (Goran Kostić) and Ajla (Zana Marjanović), two Bosnians from different sides of a brutal ethnic conflict.

Danijel, a Bosnian Serb police officer, and Ajla, a Bosnian Muslim artist, are together before the war, but their relationship is changed as violence engulfs the country. Months later, Danijel is serving under his father, General Nebojsa Vukojevich (Rade Šerbedžija), as an officer in the Bosnian Serb Army.

He and Ajla come face to face again and as the conflict takes hold of their lives, their relationship changes, their motives and connection to one another become ambiguous and their allegiances grow uncertain. In the Land of Blood and Honey portrays the incredible emotional, moral and physical toll that the war takes on individuals as well as the consequences that stem from the lack of political will to intervene in a society stricken with conflict.

“I wanted to make a film that would express, in an artistic way, my frustrations with the international community’s failure to intervene in conflicts in a timely and effective manner. I also wanted to explore and understand the Bosnian War, as well as broader issues such as women in conflict, sexual violence, accountability for war crimes and crimes against humanity, and the challenge of reconciliation.

“It was the deadliest war in Europe since World War II, but sometimes people forget the terrible violence that happened in our time, in our generation, to our generation.” With this in mind, Jolie began to write what became the script for In the Land of Blood and Honey, which she would eventually direct.

For almost five decades after World War II, the Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina formed part of Yugoslavia, alongside the Republics of Serbia, Croatia, Montenegro, Slovenia, Macedonia, and the semi-autonomous Serbian provinces of Kosovo and Vojvodina. During this time, a rich web of ethnic and religious identities made Bosnia’s population of 4 million one of the most diverse in Europe.

Bosnian Muslims formed the largest part of the population, followed by Serbs, Croats, and other groups. All spoke the same language, and intermarriage was common. The Bosnian War erupted in 1992 when Bosnian Serbs, backed by the Yugoslav Army, occupied towns and cities in eastern Bosnia-Herzegovina and laid siege to Sarajevo, the capital, in an attempt to carve out a separate and ethnically pure “Republic of Serbs.”

The war would become the most devastating conflict in Europe since World War II. Jolie knew that this project was one that had to be treated with the proper respect and delicacy. “I went to people in the various governments, people in the international community, the UN and journalists who covered the war, and I asked, ‘Is this right?’

But the most important voices were the people from the area, the actors. They lived through the war. Although the people who covered the story — international journalists, international politicians — had important views, the people who were on the ground, whose families were affected, who were shot at, who were made refugees — they were the ones that I was the most nervous to send the script to and whose opinion I most valued.”

In the Land of Blood and Honey will be available in theaters December 23.

Joe Seer / Shutterstock.com

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