REELING REALITY: as San Francisco’s Arab Film Festival gains new relevance, why are filmmakers in the Middle East still finding it hard to tell their stories?

With all eyes turned to the Middle East, the Arab Film Festival, which is held in venues throughout the Bay Area, has taken on a relevance and a cachet that is surprising even to its overworked organizers and volunteers. After thirteen years in San Francisco and San Jose (and more recently Berkeley and Palo Alto) the festival suddenly is standing out in a field clogged with better capitalized events.

Organizers of the festival figure that now, with U.S. soldiers battling in Iraq and Israeli-Palestinian friction at the boiling point, it is more important than ever for Americans to understand there is more to Arab life than what is seen on television. "All we see in the news is angry people burning effigies, talking about how much they hate America," said organizer John Sinno. To this end, the festival showcases recent independent and mainstream cinema from a wide variety of Arab countries, as well as from Arab filmmakers scattered throughout the Diaspora. The selection is part of the festival’s mission to expose audiences to a large and vibrant Arab world of diverse religions, races and cultures.

One standout this year was Palestinian writer/director Najwa Najjar’s impressive feature debut, "Pomegranates and Myrrh," which blended romance and reality. Shot last year, it stars Hiam Abbass ("Amreeka" and "The Syrian Bride") who plays Kamar, a newlywed folk dancer who must forge her own path, past disapproving in-laws and an enticing suitor, when the Israeli army jails her husband. The film brings to the surface a woman’s attempts at balancing her own desires with that of family and society.

Despite the festival’s impressive roster of films, it is still tough for Arab filmmakers to find support within their communities for the stories they want to tell; when it is ironically those very communities that complain of their one-dimensional portrayal in Hollywood movies.

According to Ahmad Zahra, a Syrian-born LA based director, “for many in the Arab communities, a project must match their personal views in order to warrant investment or even the purchase of a movie ticket.”  He pointed to one of the entries at this year’s film festival called "Help," a Lebanese film which portrayed both a prostitute and a gay character. Each movie in the festival is being presented in concert with local Arab groups, but most shied away from being connected with "Help" because of the controversial story.

Michel Shehadeh, director of the festival, explained that the challenges faced by Zahra and "Help" are common among the filmmakers he deals with. Much of the reluctance the filmmakers come up against stems from conservative values, suspicious of what might be portrayed, or a lack of understanding about the role film can play in molding public perceptions within a society.

For Cherien Dabis, the writer and director of "Amreeka," funding her movie wasn't the hard part. But last month she sent out an e-mail to partners and several listservs regarding Amreeka, which garnered great reviews and won a prize at Cannes. "There seems to be a perception that Amreeka has succeeded, and it has on many levels, but that success is not being reflected at the box office," she wrote. "It's the box office that will determine whether or not there is a future for films like this one."

It is a balance most Arab filmmakers struggle with in their work, as they try to present a relatable and realistic image about their communities without falling into sugar-coated fiction.

For more on the Arab Film Festival visit www.aff.org