Filmmakers Focused on Faith

Then she found Mahmoud Rezaei-Kamalabad, owner of Aladdin Auto Service in Cambridge. Rezaei-Kamalabad, a Shi'a, came to the United States from Iran 30 years ago to study filmmaking. With a growing family, he instead began to work as a mechanic. By day, he invites customers to sit, have tea and talk about their lives as they wait for their cars to be repaired. At night, he creates art that draws from the world's major religions. He combined the Bible, the Torah and the Koran into one book, and called it "The Book of Light." The film opens with him slowly chanting "ya Rabb," or, Harney said, "Oh Lord."

"It was his voice, when I heard it, that's what grabbed me. Listen to him singing the names of God. It's so calming. So meditative," she said, watching the film on her laptop. "And his art is such a beautiful blend of religions. People have said to me, 'That's an interesting view of Islam.' But that is Islam. We believe in Jesus. We believe in Moses. We believe in the Torah. He sends that message, more than preaching. His art touches people."

The film features a Jewish mother and her daughter visiting Rezaei-Kamalabad after Hebrew school, a young American who gets her car fixed and often chats with him over tea, and a neighboring businessman who says that Rezaei-Kamalabad can transform cars and souls at the same time.

What Harney hopes, she said, is for Americans who know little about Islam other than Sept. 11 to be touched by Rezaei-Kamalabad's story. And for Muslims, some of whom gave her, a Sunni, grief for filming a Shi'a, she hopes to remind them that their faith embraces all religious traditions.

"It's a message of hope, diversity and tolerance," she said. "And we need more of it."

Finalists and winning films will be broadcast on LinkTV. They can be viewed online athttp://www.linktv.org/onenation.