Angelina Jolie Refutes Vanity Fair Excerpt Depicting Controversial Casting Process: ‘I Am Upset’

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Published on Friday, 04 August 2017 18:45

Written by Variety

         Angelina Jolie is refuting a Vanity Fair cover story that described a controversial casting process for her movie “First They Killed My Father.” According to the excerpt, Jolie and her casting associates placed money on a table and allowed the children auditioning for the Cambodian film to take it. However, after taking the money, the director then “caught” the kids, and forced them to explain why they needed the cash. Srey Moch was ultimately chosen for the part. “Moch was the only child that stared at the money for a very, very long time,” Jolie is quoted as saying. “When she was forced to give it back, she became overwhelmed with emotion. All these different things came flooding back. When she was asked later what the money was for, she said her grandfather had died, and they didn’t have enough money for a nice funeral.” Angelina Jolie Opens Up About Brad Pitt Divorce, Reveals Bell’s Palsy Diagnosis. Jolie now says that the process described in the profile was misconstrued, and was “a pretend exercise in an improvisation, from an actual scene in the film.” In a statement to Variety on Sunday, Jolie noted that she was “upset” by the allegations.
         “The suggestion that real money was taken from a child during an audition is false and upsetting,” she wrote. “I would be outraged myself if this had happened.” “First They Killed My Father” is based on the 2000 book by Loung Ung. The story is a personal retelling of Ung’s survival of the Pol Pot regime. The film will be released on Netflix in September.
         Statements from Angelina Jolie and producer Rithy Panh — who himself is a survivor of the Khmer Rouge — can be viewed in full below: Jolie: Every measure was taken to ensure the safety, comfort and well-being of the children on the film starting from the auditions through production to the present. Parents, guardians, partner NGOs whose job it is to care for children, and medical doctors were always on hand everyday, to ensure everyone had all they needed. And above all to make sure that no one was in any way hurt by participating in the recreation of such a painful part of their country’s history. I am upset that a pretend exercise in an improvisation, from an actual scene in the film, has been written about as if it was a real scenario. The suggestion that real money was taken from a child during an audition is false and upsetting. I would be outraged myself if this had happened. The point of this film is to bring attention to the horrors children face in war, and to help fight to protect them.
         Panh: I want to comment on recent reports about the casting process for Angelina Jolie’s ‘First They Killed My Father,’ which grossly mischaracterize how child actors were selected for the film, and I want to clear up the misunderstandings.Because so many children were involved in the production, Angelina and I took the greatest care to ensure their welfare was protected. Our goal was to respect the realities of war, while nurturing everyone who helped us to recreate it for the film.The casting was done in the most sensitive way possible. The children were from different backgrounds. Some were underprivileged; others were not. Some were orphans. All of the children were tended to at all times by relatives or carers from the NGOs responsible for them. The production team followed the families’ preferences and the NGO organizations’ guidelines. Some of the auditions took place on the NGOs’ premises.Ahead of the screen tests, the casting crew showed the children the camera and the sound recording material. It explained to them that they were going to be asked to act out a part: to pretend to steal petty cash or a piece of food left unattended and then get caught in the act. It relates to a real episode from the life of Loung Ung, and a scene in the movie, when she and her siblings were caught by the Khmer Rouge and accused of stealing.
         The purpose of the audition was to improvise with the children and explore how a child feels when caught doing something he or she is not supposed to be doing.We wanted to see how they would improvise when their character is found ‘stealing’ and how they would justify their action. The children were not tricked or entrapped, as some have suggested. They understood very well that this was acting, and make believe. What made Srey Moch, who was chosen for the lead role of Loung Ung, so special was that she said that she would want the money not for herself, but for her grandfather.Great care was taken with the children not only during auditions, but throughout the entirety of the film’s making. They were accompanied on set by their parents, other relatives or tutors. Time was set aside for them to study and play. The children’s well-being was monitored by a special team each day, including at home, and contact continues to the present. Because the memories of the genocide are so raw, and many Cambodians still have difficulty speaking about their experiences, a team of doctors and therapists worked with us on set every day so that anyone from the cast or crew who wanted to talk could do so.The children gave their all in their performances and have made all of us in the production, and, I believe, in Cambodia, very proud.

 source : Variety

Angelina Jolie's Latest Film Comes Under Fire From Human Rights Watch

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Published on Friday, 04 August 2017 18:48

Written by PSmag

             The director may have cast the controversial Royal Cambodian Armed Forces in First They Killed My Father.Just as critics have begun to include Angelina Jolie's new film in their lists predicting nominees for the 2018 Oscar race, Human Rights Watch's Asia Division is criticizing the director for allegedly casting soldiers from the controversial Royal Cambodian Armed Forces in her much-anticipated new movie, First They Killed My Father.First They Killed My Father, set to be released stateside this year by Netflix, portrays the Khmer Rouge's regime through the eyes of a five-year-old girl and is based on the acclaimed 2006 memoir by Loung Ung of the same name. While reception of the film in Cambodia, where it screened in February, has reportedly been positive, in a Vanity Fair magazine profile of Jolie released online on Wednesday, author Evgenia Peretz includes an anecdote that has alarmed at least one human rights advocate. Among other concessions to the movie's team, Cambodia "provid[ed the production] with 500 officials from their actual army to play the Khmer Rouge army," Peretz writes. Brad Adams, executive director of Human Rights Watch's Asia Division, told New York magazine on Thursday that, if this detail is true, it represents an uncharacteristically unethical production decision from the famously humanitarian filmmaker. "To ask for permission to make a film and thereby invest in the local economy is fine, and you're going to have to have some meetings with some government officials," Adams said. "But you can take a stance to make sure you don't empower, legitimize, or pay the wrong people. And working with the Cambodian army is a no-go zone, it's a red flag, and it's a terrible mistake." Rights groups argue that the government of current Prime Minister Hun Sen regularly deploys the RCAF to suppress the opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party, as well as to quell trade unions and other protestors. In 2014, the Cambodian army opened fire on garment factory workers who were striking for higher wages, killing four and injuring 21. Human Rights Watch says that the RCAF has, under orders from the government, also organized several roadblocks, where security forces harass and attempt to intimidate those who they suspect will protest or agitate.For Jolie, working with the RCAF would be a ding on her humanitarian record. She has worked to preserve endangered forests and prevent sexual violence, among other causes, in Cambodia since her first blockbuster film, 2001's Tomb Raider, was partially shot in the country. She has been awarded honorary citizenship in the country for her conservation work; Jolie has also adopted three children from Cambodian orphanages.Nevertheless, Jolie has come under fire for making ethically dubious decisions during her work in the country before: In 2011, PRI reported that she had purchased land for her Maddox Jolie-Pitt Foundation from Yim Tith, a former commander for the Khmer Rouge. She was also the subject of several critical stories on Wednesday, after she told Vanity Fair about a controversial tactic she had used when casting the five-year-old lead in First They Killed My Father: Casting directors would put money on a table in front of a child and ask them to think about something they needed it for; then Jolie pretended to "catch" the child and take the money away.As for the girl chosen for the part, Srey Moch: "When she was asked later what the money was for, she said her grandfather had died, and they didn't have enough money for a nice funeral," Jolie told the magazine.

 source : PSmag

Angelina Jolie Explains How First They Killed My Father Helped Her Son Maddox Connect to His Country

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Published on Thursday, 27 July 2017 11:08

Written by People

          For Angelina Jolie, adapting her friend Loung Ung‘s memoir First They Killed My Father into a film was more than just a passion project.In a new behind-the-scenes video, the director, actress and activist explains how her deep connection to Cambodia and its people inspired her to help tell a painful story in the country’s recent history. “I’m doing this for [Ung], for her family, for Cambodia and very much also for Maddox,” she said of her oldest son, whom she adopted from the country, adding, “So he learns about who he is and becomes that much more connected to his country.” Jolie fell in love with Cambodia while filming her breakout role in 2001’s Tomb Raider there on location. She found the poverty-stricken country still recovering from the genocide inflicted by the Khmer Rouge regime, which led to the deaths of nearly a quarter of the population from 1975 to 1979. The group was active until 1999, and the war tribunals started in 2009 are ongoing.Despite the terror endured by average Cambodians, Jolie recently told Vanity Fair of first visit, “I found a people who were so kind and warm and open, and, yes, very complex. You drive around here you can see a lot of people with many things, but not often expressing happiness. You go there, and you see the families come out with their blanket and their picnic to watch a sunset.”In the behind-the-scenes clip, Jolie explains that she was disappointed she wasn’t taught more about Cambodia in school. Wanting to learn more, she bought a book on the side of the road for $2. The book was Loung Ung’s First They Killed My Father, a memoir about Ung’s harrowing experience under the Khmer Rouge.
          Jolie and Ung eventually became friends, and it was the author’s advice and support that helped the actress make up her mind about adopting a Cambodian child. “I talked to her about wanting to be the mother of a Cambodian child, and how she would feel about that as an orphan — as a woman who had been orphaned by the war,” she explains in the clip.Ung’s support helped Jolie to visit an orphanage in the provincial town of Battambang, where she ultimately found her son Maddox, now 15. She recalled the story to Vanity Fair, remembering that at first, “I didn’t feel a connection with any of them. They then said, ‘There’s one more baby.’ ” That’s when she saw Maddox lying in a box suspended from the ceiling. “I cried and cried,” she said.Ultimately, it was Maddox who encouraged his mom to turn “Auntie” Loung’s book into a film. “He was the one who said, ‘It’s time to do it,’ ” Jolie told Vanity Fair. She recognized his passion for the project, and realized that he’d be “standing there watching horrors that his countrymen did to each other. [So] he had to be ready.” Determined only to make the film with Cambodian support and participation, Jolie first drafted the country’s most famous filmmaker, Rithy Panh, who had lost family in the killings. She also worked with the Cambodian government, which blessed the project, citing Jolie’s track record of respect for the country’s culture and history. Even the child actors in the film were scouted from “orphanages, circuses and slum schools,” according to Vanity Fair.For Maddox, Jolie told the magazine, “It was a way for him to walk in the steps that most likely his birth parents walked.” By the end of the project, she was heartened to see him having sleepovers with his new Cambodian friends from set.

First They Killed My Father premieres on Netflix this September.

 source : People

Angelina Jolie, George Clooney and More! See the Stars Heading to Toronto Film Festival

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Published on Wednesday, 26 July 2017 06:09

Written by People

         This year’s Toronto International Film Festival features one star-studded lineup! On Tuesday, the prestigious festival unveiled its first slate of films for this year’s September 7 to 17 event, including movies directed by Angelina Jolie and George Clooney.Jolie’s First They Killed My Father is set to hit the festival, a few months after the passion project about the Khmer Rouge genocide premiered in Siem Reap, Cambodia. Meanwhile, Clooney’s comedy Suburbicon will show along with Darren Aronofsky‘s Mother! (which stars his girlfriend Jennifer Lawrence).The festival traditionally kicks the year’s Oscar race into high gear, with contenders vying to start the momentum that will carry them through awards season.Movies with gala world premieres will feature a slew of A-listers, including Emma Stone and Steve Carell as tennis rivals Billie Jean King and Bobby Riggs in Battle of the Sexes; Kings, a drama about the L.A. riots starring Daniel Craig and Halle Berry; the Jake Gyllenhaal-fronted Stronger, about a Boston bombing survivor; and Neil Burger’s untitled film starring Kevin Hart.In other festival highlights, the formidable Judi Dench is taking on another royal role: She plays Queen Victoria in Victoria and Abdul. And Matt Damon is going mini! He’s a man who decides to shrink down to 5 in. tall in director Alexander Payne’s Downsizing.TIFF also snagged the international premiere of the Sundance hit Mudbound, a drama about a family living in the Deep South. The film stars Jason Clark, Mary J. Blige and Jason Mitchell. Paul McGuigan’s Film Stars Don’t Die in Liverpool, with Annette Bening playing Hollywood Golden Age actress Gloria Grahame, and Joe Wright’s Darkest Hour, starring Gary Oldman as Winston Churchill, will get Canadian premieres at the festival.This year’s event will be bittersweet as the world mourns the death of the festival’s founder, Bill Marshall. He died of a heart attack in January, EW reported. He was 77.

 source : People