The pace has significantly quickened in the last few days for Angelina Jolie's Bosnian War set romance movie, her directorial debuting effort from a script she penned as a FilmDistrict (co-run shingle from Graham King who made The Tourist with the actress) has picked up the U.S. distribution rights to the picture out in Cannes and which now has an official titled - "In The Land of Blood and Honey". A release date has now also been set and it's a confident Dec. 23rd opening prime for Oscar season for the Academy Award winning actress. The picture stars mostly unknowns and is set around the love between a Muslin woman (Zana Marjanovic) and a Serbian man (Goran Kostic). Rade Serbedzija (Snatch) also appears. Jolie says in a statement;
The film is specific to the Bosnian War, but its also universal... I wanted to tell a story of how human relationships and behavior are deeply affected by living inside a war. The former Yugoslavia has a rich history of dramatic arts. The cast was extraordinary. I was privileged and honored to work with them and I am very excited for everyone to see their immense talent, Jolie said.
Ambitiously, Jolie a lot of the scenes of the movie twice, once in the Serbo-Croation language accurate to the time but also in English Language, and it's that format which FilmDistrict will release. Previous talk of the film perhaps being converted to Black and White have died down, Jolie stating previously;
Its shot in color but it could transfer to black and white. We haven`t decided that. I can show you we put a series of pictures together in black and white and it was beautiful. But the important thing is I want to make sure that we make a film for people who just want to go to the movies to watch a love story. To not be put off by anything that seems too heavy. So we want to walk that fine line to make it accessible to everybody because its important for as many people to see it.