Jolie: Bosnian War Film Is Wake-Up Call To World

Angelina Jolie has said her film about the Bosnian war should be a "wake-up call" for the world to act in time to prevent atrocities like those now happening in Syria.

Jolie received a standing ovation by an audience of 5,000 people at the premiere of her directorial debut film In The Land Of Blood And Honey.

The Hollywood star broke down in tears when she got on the stage after the screening in Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

"To see you receiving it so well means a world to me. I feel so deep for all of you in this country," she said.

The film tells the story of a Muslim woman and a Serb man who have a love affair before Bosnia's 1992-1995 war, only to meet again when the woman is a prisoner in a unit of the Bosnian Serb army commanded by her former lover.

"I feel very strongly about it (the film) and I believe that its core issue - which is the need for intervention and need for the world to pay attention to atrocities when they are happening - is very, very timely and especially with things that are happening in Syria today," Jolie told journalists.

"If this film points the finger at anybody it is the international community, so I hope it remains a wake-up call for them."

Many women who watched the screening with tears in their eyes said they were "shocked".

"I lived through the war but I was spared the horrors other women suffered. Thank you Angelina for speaking about Bosnia like this," said 30 year-old Suzana Omeragic.

The film has already had a special preview screening in Bosnia for war victims' organisations as a number of them had expressed concern that it would not correctly reflect their plight.

Most eventually described the movie as objective and sincere.

But in a Serb part of Bosnia many reacted angrily, accusing Jolie of being biased against their ethnic community, which they say she has portrayed as villainous.

Jolie denied her film was anti-Serb.

"I understand that it is sensitive, but I also know that the Serbian people are intelligent and open-minded people," she said.

Bosnia's war between its Croats, Muslims and Serbs claimed some 100,000 lives.

Jolie's film, shot in 2010 with a number of actors from the former Yugoslavia, had its international premiere in December in New York.

It goes on general release in Europe this month and will also be screened at the 62nd Berlin film festival.