Angelina Jolie +

She and Brad Pitt have been long-term supporters of HALO, and visited our projects in a number of mine-impacted countries. Their financial support to HALO has run to many hundreds of thousands of pounds, funding humanitarian mineclearance teams in Cambodia, Sri Lanka, Kosovo and Afghanistan. This was her first visit to the HQ, and was a chance for a global briefing by senior HALO staff on the current landmine problem.

Guy Willoughby, co-founder and Director of the Trust, said:

It was a great opportunity for us to talk through the projects and also plan our demining priorities for the future – identifying which communities in different countries are most in need of our support.

Angelina Jolie said:

It was a privilege to visit the HALO headquarters and meet their committed staff. In the aftermath of war, HALO’s mineclearing efforts are fundamental to a safe return and community building.

For more information call +44 (0 ) 1848 331100, or visit our website at www.halotrust.org or contact us on press@halotrust.org for additional photographs. Photographs with meta-data are copyright Fiona Willoughby/HALO, and should have that tag. Angelina has asked for all copy, where at all possible, to include our website www.halotrust.org. Thank you.

Angelina Jolie has met with Croatian President Ivo Josipovic to discuss the country’s attempts to remove dangerous landmines.

The UN Goodwill Ambassador arrived in Croatia over the weekend to urge President Josipovic to take decisive action to dispose of landmines still remaining from the country’s civil war in the 1990s.

Jolie and two of her children also attended a performance of Shakespeare’s King Lear while visiting Croatia, according to newspaper Jutarnji List.

The star had been invited to the region by the Croatian actor Rade Serbedzija, who played Gregorovitch in the Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows films.

A source close to Jolie recently suggested that she and partner Brad Pitt have settled down now that their children have grown older.

Jolie’s directorial debut In the Land of Blood and Honey, which was partially filmed in Bosnia, opens on December 23 in US cinemas.
digital spy

(Reuters) – Hollywood actress Angelina Jolie was close to tears as she received a special award during an unannounced visit to Sarajevo’s film festival Saturday with partner Brad Pitt.

“I will start crying if you don’t stop,” Oscar-awarded Jolie told the audience who gave her a standing ovation at the city’s National Theater.

Jolie chose Bosnia’s 1992-95 war as the setting for her first film as a director. “In the Land of Blood and Honey” is due to be released in December.

She has also visited Bosnia as a goodwill ambassador for the U.N.’s refugee agency UNHCR and funded the construction of several houses for returnees in eastern Bosnia.

Festival director Mirsad Purivatra presented Jolie with a heart-shaped award when she appeared at the closing ceremony.

“Tonight we are giving the honorary Heart of Sarajevo to a great artist, not only for the great impact she has in the world of cinema but also for persisting and her active engagement in the complexities of the real world we live in,” Purivatra said.

Jolie, dressed in a long peach dress, stood on stage with eyes full of tears waiting for the clapping to die down.

“I told Brad in the car I was afraid I was going to cry,” she said, her voice breaking.

Jolie’s film tells the story of a love affair between a Bosniak (Bosnian Muslim) woman and a Serb, who were on opposite warring sides during the conflict.

She planned to shoot parts of the film in Sarajevo and engaged a local crew. But she had to move to Budapest after some female victims of sexual violence objected to details in the plot and Bosnian authorities canceled a filming permit.

“I am so honored to be here at this festival,” Jolie said after receiving the award. “There is no greater example of the strengths of the artists and the festival that began during the war and grew stronger every year.”

The Sarajevo film festival was launched toward the end of the Bosnian capital’s 43-month siege by Bosnian Serb forces.

Jolie presented Austrian actor Thomas Schubert with the award for the best actor for his role in the film “Atmen,” directed by Karl Markovics.

Atmen, about a young offender searching for his mother, was also named best film in the festival.

Romanian actress Ada Condeascu won the prize for best actress for her role in the film “Loverboy.

Angelina Jolie has spoken out about returning to her beloved country of Cambodia to shoot her latest campaign images for luxury label Louis Vuitton, and how much of a life-changing place this beautiful country has been.
“I first came to Cambodia about ten years ago for a film and we were the first film back since the war, so we didn’t know quite know what it was going to be like, or what the people were going to be like, and it was the first time I became aware of landmines,” said Jolie.

“I remember standing in the waterfall during one of our shots and they said ‘just stay on this side of the waterfall because that side of the waterfall still hasn’t been de-mined’. And I thought, as somebody from America, what does that mean, hasn’t been de-mined? It’s just the craziest, it doesn’t cross our mind that all these children, and people walking around these areas, have landmines in the ground and that’s just a part of their daily life.”

With the campaign’s tagline simply reading: “A single journey can change the course of a life. Cambodia, May 2011,” it’s a pretty hard-hitting sentence to anybody who reads it.

All fees Angelina makes from the campaign are also being donated to charity.

Angelina Jolie travels to Cambodia and recounts the journey that changed her life in the latest chapter of the Louis Vuitton “Core Values” campaign.

The 36-year-old actress returned to Cambodia in her role as a United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Goodwill Ambassador, raising awareness of the dangers of landmines, and subsequently adopted her eldest son Maddox from a Cambodian orphanage. In 2005, she was awarded Cambodian citizenship by King Norodom Sihamoni for her humanitarian and conservation work in the country through the Maddox Jolie-Pitt Foundation, which she established in 2003.

FYI: Angelina’s fees for this campaign are being donated to charity.
jastjard.com

June 20 is World Refugee Day .

The PSA seeks to show the power of one. The actress-turned-philanthropist says, “One family forced to flee is too many. … One child growing up in a camp is too many. One refugee without hope is too many. … Do one thing. Visit UNHCR.org, and learn how you can make a difference.”

Angelina serves as a Goodwill Ambassador for the UNHCR (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees), and has been a huge voice for these displaced people.

pls,visit UNHCR DO 1 thing campaign.