A U.S. judge has ruled in favor of Angelina Jolie in a copyright infringement lawsuit filed against the actress by a Croatian journalist over her directorial debut In The Land Of Blood And Honey.

The Hollywood beauty wrote, produced and directed the movie, which chronicles a romance between a rape and kidnap victim and one of her captors during the 1990s Bosnian Civil War, but her work came under scrutiny days before its release in 2011 after writer James Braddock filed suit, claiming she had lifted the film's storyline from his book, The Soul Shattering.

He took the Oscar-winning actress to court, alongside defendants from GK Films and distributor Film District, but his case suffered a blow on Friday (29Mar13) when California District Judge Dolly Gee ruled that there were not enough similarities between the two projects to prove violation of copyright.

Braddock has been ordered to show cause as to why the action should not be dismissed with prejudice by 12 April (13).