United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) Goodwill Ambassador Angelina Jolie presents the Nansen prize to Yemen's Society for Humanitarian Solidarity and its founder, Nasser Salim Ali Al-Hamairy (not pictured) at a ceremony in Geneva October 3, 2011. [Photo/Agencies]

The promotional trailer for Angelina Jolie's film directoring debut, "In The Land of Blood and Honey," hit theaters Friday, giving a glimpse of the movie about love and violence in war-torn Bosnia.

Juxtaposing romantic scenes with tense film footage of warfare, the film trailer outlines a love story between a Serbian man and a Bosnian-Muslim woman who are forced apart in the 1992 Bosnian conflicts. The words "Love can change what we want" and "War can change who we are" emerge near the end.

The movie sparked controversy in Bosnia in October one year ago when Jolie was shooting the film. The head of a group of female war victims objected to the movie because, she said, it was about a woman was falling in love with her enemy, and a government minister canceled a permit for the film shoot.

At the time, Jolie asked people to withhold judgment until the movie was finished and they could see the final version.

"There are many twists in the plot that address the sensitive nature of the relationship between the main characters and that will be revealed once the film is released," the Oscar-winning actress said last year.

The film is Jolie's debut in the director's seat for a script that she also penned. Newcomers Zana Marjanovic and Goran Kostic play the star-crossed lovers against a backdrop of guns and explosions. Jolie has said she opted to cast unknown Bosnian actors in order to tell the story authentically.

Jolie also opted to shoot scenes simultaneously in the English and Serbo-Croat languages, so that there will be two versions released of the film. "In The Land of Blood and Honey" is set for release in U.S. theaters on December 23.