Jolie hails widow’s strength

ANGELINA Jolie, who plays the widow of slain Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl in A Mighty Heart, said she was overwhelmed by Mariane Pearl’s inner strength and her ability to let go of hatred.

Jolie, Pearl and Brad Pitt, the movie’s co-producer, were at the Cannes Film Festival yesterday for the premiere of the movie about Pearl’s abduction and murder in Pakistan in 2002 while researching a story on Islamic militants.

The film, shot in a naturalistic documentary style, recounts the search to find Pearl’s kidnappers and his widow’s struggle to come to terms with his death.

“For me, so much of why this film was important to do is because I highly doubt there is anybody in this room who has more reason to hold hate inside herself than Mariane, and she doesn’t,” Jolie told reporters. “That is, I think, a lesson for all of us,” the 31-year-old actress said.

The film, directed by Michael Winterbottom, begins on the last day the couple spent together in Pakistan, where they were both on assignment as reporters.

Pearl was captured by Islamic militants in January 2002. Despite worldwide pleas for his release, he was beheaded nine days later and a video of the killing was posted on the internet.

Their son, Adam, was born a few months later.