Jay Weissberg of "Variety" gave the film a negative review. Weissberg questions the producers' motives and writes that the film contains "undisguised anti-Croatian and anti-Catholic elements" which are "designed as incendiary fodder" for current conflicts, and that it lacks any serious examination of the dangers of nationalism, racism and genocide which are instead replaced with "cheap sensation and sentiment". Weissberg's review provoked a reaction from the film's director Predrag Antonijević and executive producer Michael Berenbaum, the President of the Board of Directors of Film Center of Serbia Jelena Trivan, representatives of the film's distributor, MegaCom, Serbian Minister of Internal Affairs Aleksandar Vulin, and Serbian Minister of Culture and Information Maja Gojković, among others. Antonijević dubbed Weisberg's critique as a political "pamphlet" rather than a movie review as it contained "only two or three sentences about the film itself". Berenbaum disputed Weissberg's anti-Croatian and anti-Catholic charges as "nonsense", stressing the film's factual adherence to camp testimonials and that if someone thinks the story is political, "that's [them] bringing it to the story". Meanwhile, Weissberg—who is Jewish himself—revealed that he received online antisemitic abuse in a campaign directed at him by Minister Vulin. Highlighting Vulin's close relationship with the widow of Slobodan Milošević, Weissberg stated, "This is a man who has certainly condoned a genocide who is turning around and calling me a Holocaust denier".