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A journalist and author in Croatia has filed a copyright infringement
suit against Angelina Jolie and the producers of the upcoming movie she
directed, "In the Land of Blood and Honey," claiming that the project is
lifted from his book "The Soul Shattering."
James J. Braddock, who
lives in Zagreb and covered the Bosnian war, filed his suit in U.S.
District Court in Illinois and is seeking damages and an injunction
preventing the release of the movie. In addition to Jolie, GK Films,
FilmDistrict, Scout Film and producer Edin Sarkic are named as
defendants.
Braddock's book, originally published in 2007 in the
native langauge of Croatia, is an account of the tragedies suffered by
Bosnian and Herzegovinian women and children during the war there.
He
said in his suit that "In the Land of Blood and Honey" "copies key plot
elements, themes, characters, events, sequences and settings" of his
book. For instance, he points out, both the book and the movie portray a
love story during the war in the early 1990s. The book and the film
have a main female character, living near Sarajevo, who is captured and
held in a Serbian concentration camp located in a village, the suit
states. The book and the movie have a main male character who is a camp
commander whose father is a high-ranking "Greater Serbian" nationalist
and important officer of the Yugoslav People's Army.
Braddock
claims that after his book was published, he met with Sarkic at least
three times to discuss details of the book, "including plot and
character development and the story's culturual significance and
historical accuracy." The conversations then evolved into pursuing a
movie.
Braddock also says that he contacted LaToya King of the
Make It Right Foundation, which gets major support from the Pitt-Jolie
Foundation, with the idea of partnering to build houses in Sarejevo and
New Orleans and elsewhere. He said that he sent the e-mail to King
without knowing that Sarkic was working with Jolie on "In the Land of
Blood and Honey."
A spokesman for the producers of the movie could not immediately be reached.
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