Angelina Jolie has made her directorial debut in Tokyo and
urged the Japanese audience to join her fight to stop sexual violence in
war zones.
The actress said she hoped In the Land of Blood and Honey, her first
film as writer and director, would inspire viewers to think further
about rape in war.Jolie was speaking to an audience at a special screening at the United Nations University in Tokyo.
In The Land Of Blood And Honey tells the fictional tale of a romance between a Bosnian Serb man and a Bosnian Muslim woman who were on opposite sides during the 1992 conflict.
The film sparked controversy in Bosnia before its release with a group of female war victims objecting to the movie because it was about a woman falling in love with her enemy, and a government minister cancelling a permit for the film shoot.
Addressing 200 students and journalists, Jolie said: "It is art, it's not a documentary. Its purpose is not to vilify but to try to understand.
"It is a study of the human condition, and as art, it will mean different things to different people.
"Everyone is free to draw their own conclusions. But whatever you take from this film, I hope that you'll be inspired to think further about these issues."
Last month Jolie, a special envoy for the UN Refugee Agency, made her debut at the UN Security Council where she urged the organisation to make dealing with war zone rape a top priority.
In May, the Oscar-winning actress revealed that she had had double mastectomy in a New York Times column, saying the decision was made after finding she carried a gene giving her an 87% chance of getting breast cancer.
The 38-year-old mother of six is now reported to be planning another operation to remove her ovaries as the BRCA1 gene also gives her a 50% chance of ovarian cancer.
The star was joined by Brad Pitt who was in Japan to walk the red carpet to promote his movie World War Z.
Her partner plays an ex-UN crisis specialist who fights zombies.