Brad Pitt's Parents Are 'Very Proud' of Angelina Jolie

By Shruti Dhalwala

12/06/2011 at 10:00 AM EST

She couldn't have done it without them, and Angelina Jolie beamed as she was surrounded by her proud support system at the New York premiere of her directorial debut film, In the Land of Blood and Honey, Monday night.

"It means everything," Jolie, 36, said of having Brad Pitt and his parents, Bill and Jane Pitt, by her side. "I couldn't be standing here without them."

Matching their son and Jolie in all-black ensembles, the elder Pitts happily spoke to reporters, saying they were "very proud" of her work and that they admired her knack for doing everything well – including being a "really good mom."

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So how did she juggle duties of directing, as well as writing and producing the film, with tending to her six children – Maddox, 10, Pax, 8, Zahara, 6, Shiloh, 5, and 2-year-old Knox and Vivienne? 

"I have a wonderful partner in Brad and we take turns working always," said Jolie, who was led onto the carpet holding Pitt's hand. "So I was with the kids when he shot Moneyball, and when he finished he took a few months off while I was shooting this."

And with the kids on the set almost every day, that help proved to be even more valuable given the violent context of the movie: a story about the intertwined lives of a Serbian man and a Bosnian woman during the horrors of the 1992 Bosnian War.    

"It was helpful [to have them there], but the kids had to be kept away from most of the set," said Jolie. "So they would be outside playing with the fake snow and I would be inside working on something else."

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