Mira Nair, Peter Gabriel work on Guillermo Arriaga film

Mexico City, July 1 (IANS/EFE) Religion is the central theme of the new film by Mexican director and screenwriter Guillermo Arriaga, in which a group of outstanding filmmakers, including Mira Nair, took part along with Nobel literature laureate Mario Vargas Llosa and British musician Peter Gabriel.

Arriaga's short is one of several segments that make up the feature-length film "Words with Gods", which explores the religious views held by a group of directors that includes Serbian Emir Kusturica, Argentina's Hector Babenco, Australian Warwick Thorntonel, Bahman Ghobadi from Iran, India's Mira Nair, Japan's Hideo Nakata, Amos Gitai of France, Spaniard Alex de la Iglesia, and Arriaga himself.

The music was created by Peter Gabriel, about whom Arriaga told a press conference Friday that he "never imagined he was such a charming person", while Peru's Vargas Llosa was in charge of arranging the shorts that make up the film.

"The idea of the film is to present different beliefs in the most respectful possible way," the scriptwriter of such films as "Amores Perros", "21 Gramos" and "Babel" said.

Religion is a subject that has divided societies, so the film seeks to show that we can talk in terms of understanding, he said.

"Hablar con Dioses" ("Words with Gods") is made up of 12-minute shorts that explore aboriginal spirituality, atheism, Afro-Brazilian religion, Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Orthodox Catholicism, Hinduism and Judaism.

The movie is an element of "The Heartbeat Of The World", a Mexican cinema project comprising four feature films studying the themes of religion, sexuality, politics and drug addiction.

"I wanted to undertake the subject of religion first because it's something I'm interested in exploring. Next will come the film about sex," the director said of this ambitious project that deals with subjects "people can't talk about".

--IANS/EFE

rd