Angelina Jolie broke down in tears at a film festival as she spoke about her late mother's battle with cancer

In a video shared by Entertainment Weekly, Angelina wiped tears from her face as she said: "I'm very sorry for your loss."

She then went on to say: "I think I will say that, one thing I remember my mother saying when she had cancer, she said to me once, we had had a dinner and people were asking her how she was feeling and what she was doing, and she said: 'All anybody ever asks me about is cancer'.

"So I would say, if you know someone who's going through something, ask them about everything else in their life as well. They're a whole person, and they're still living."

In the film, Angelina plays a film director named Maxine who learns she has breast cancer during a trip to Paris and during the question and answer session, the actress spoke about connecting to the material through her own personal experiences of fear and grief.

She said: "I felt very fortunate. The film is very thoughtful, and you just sit through something, and you get to spend time and think about life. Sometimes it's as simple as that.

"Every single person here has been touched by grief, every single person here has lost someone. Many of you have had that moment in the hospital.

"You wonder, does that define you or how you live through it?

"What I really love is that there's often films that deal with cancer that become about the cancer, and the life becomes defined by the illness, instead of who is this life?

"Who is Maxine? Maxine through it isn't just this. She's a mother, she's an artist, she's sexual, all of these things I thought were really important to show, and to live forward while we're here. Try to live as much as we can."