Names and faces

Angelina Jolie urged a Japanese audience Monday tojoin her fight to stop sexual violence in war zones. Jolie said she hoped In the Land of Blood and Honey, her first film as writer and director, would inspire viewers to think about rape in war. In April, the Group of Eight leaders agreed to work to end rape and sexual violence in conflict and the United Nations Security Council adopted text urging sanctions against perpetrators of sexual violence during armed conflict. “This is just a beginning,” she said. “Our aim must be to shatter impunity, so that rape can no longer be used as a weapon of war anywhere in the world as it was in Bosnia, and as it is today from Congo to Syria.” Jolie, who serves as special envoy for the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, was speaking at a special screening event Monday at the U.N.University in Tokyo as part of her campaign launched with British Foreign Secretary William Hague. Jolie said she hoped her film would inspire Japanese viewers to think further about the problem and take action, just as the campaign had taken her across the globe. “When I started down the road, making this film, I thought only of telling a story and doing my best to try to give a voice to survivors,” she said. “But today I am here not only as a director, but as a campaigner, and a part of a global effort that is growing every day.” Peter Jackson has wrapped up filming The Hobbit trilogy and shared pictures of his last day on the set with his Facebook fans. The New Zealand filmmaker provided a steady stream of updates and photos from the set of the final film, The Hobbit: There And Back Again, on Friday. The second film, The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, will be released in December, and the finale appears in 2014. The director posted pictures of dwarfs, crew members and actor Martin Freeman, who plays the protagonist, hobbit Bilbo Baggins. The photo updates began and ended with pictures of Jackson’s cat, Mr. Smudge. The final photo shows the director and feline cuddling, along with the caption: “A long day. A great day.Thank you all for being part of it! Now for some sleep!” The Hobbit, based on J.R.R. Tolkien’s novel of the same name, is the prequel to Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings. It follows Baggins’ adventures as he tries to help a group of dwarfs regain their wealth and stature from the dragon Smaug. The first film in the trilogy, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, opened in December 2012 and surpassed $1 billion in box-office receipts worldwide.

Front Section, Pages 2 on 07/30/2013

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