Looks like Natalie Portman's directorial debut isn't getting a great start.

Outraged Israeli's protested and denounced Natalie Portman's presence in shooting her film in Jerusalem and called it a "foreign invasion."

Natalie Portman is currently filming her movie "A Tale of Love and Darkness," an adaptation of Amos Oz's autobiographical novel and is being supported the Jerusalem Film Fund and the city's municipality[10].

The locals however are not very pleased by this and began their protest by reportedly scrawling graffiti with the words "foreign invasion" during the set.

Jerusalem Deputy Mayor Rachel Azaria told Israel's Channel 10 that he received a scathing letter lashing out at Portman and her film crew.

"The film shooting is set to take place on several sensitive streets close to synagogues and yeshivas, and the scenes being filmed should have been examined first to make sure they don't offend anybody's sensitivities," the angry residents seethed.

They insist that local authorities have failed to inform them about the shoot, and suggested that they only discovered it was happening in recent days. The authorities also said that all actors involved in the shoot would dress modestly, and pointed out the difficulty of balancing the cultural interests of the city as a whole with those of local religious groups.

While the Oscar-winner may have been born in Jerusalem, and speak fluent Hebrew. This doesn't stop the resident's ultra-Orthodox hostility to most film productions and their extreme emphasis on modesty.

In the film, it details Oz's childhood in Jerusalem in the chaotic period at the end of the British mandate for Palestine, as well as the writer's experiences during the early years of the state of Israel and teenage years on a kibbutz. Portman will also take a supporting role as Oz's mother.