Angelina Jolie responds to allegations of child cruelty

CAIRO – 31 July 2017: Angelina Jolie responded to recent allegations of child cruelty in Cambodia, while casting children for her Netflix directorial debut ‘First They Killed My Father,’ saying that the allegations were “false and upsetting.”

In an interview for Vanity Fair published July 26, Jolie described the casting process for the movie. Looking at children in schools and orphanages, they were “specifically seeking children who had experienced hardship” to play the role of Cambodian activist Loung Ung.

In the interview, which has since sparked outrage, Jolie said that they put money on a table in front of the children and asked them to think of a reason why they want that money and then snatch it off the table. A casting director would then pretend to catch the child and the child would have to come up with a lie as to why they took the money.
Srey Moch, the girl cast in the role of Loung, “was the only child that stared at the money for a very, very long time,” Jolie said. “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,” she added.

The casting process was described as cruel and exploitative on social media, with people calling Jolie a hypocrite for calling herself a humanitarian while also exposing children to what has been described as “emotional abuse.”

In the recent statement, Jolie said that this was “a pretend exercise in improvisation, from an actual scene in the film.” As a humanitarian herself, she added that she “would be outraged [herself] if this had happened.”

“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,” Jolie’s statement read.

The film, which Jolie said is trying to “bring attention to the horrors children face in war,” has been released on Netlfix. It is based on Loung Ung’s memoir ‘First They Killed My Father.’