At the Berlin film festival to present her unflinching drama about rape as a weapon of war, "In the Land of Blood and Honey", the Hollywood icon-cum-humanitarian told her turn behind the camera was aimed at using cinema as a force for reconciliation.
"I've written a lot of journals while travelling over 10 years in the conflicts around the world and being frustrated by the lack of intervention," said the 36-year-old Oscar-winning actress.
"So I went to the region and started to really look at the Bosnian war, but I couldn't really understand or figure it out, and I felt this is my generation this happened to so I should know this. So I gave myself some education."
Jolie, who backs a range of causes as a UN goodwill ambassador, said her research inspired her to start writing a screenplay and her partner Brad Pitt encouraged her to show a rough draft to people from all sides of the brutal 1992-1995 war.
But when it came to making the film, she realised she was the only one with both the objective distance and passionate commitment to do the job.
"And this is how I found myself being a director!" she said.
"I knew that there might have been people who were technically more capable than me, but I knew I really, really cared from the bottom of my heart so therefore I felt I should do it."
She filmed versions of the movie in local languages and English in parallel. (AFP)
