Three years ago when Bangladeshi filmmaker Tareque Masud began searching for a French co-producer for his new venture Matir Moina (The Claybird), he got the same response from as many as 23 companies: "It's not relevant enough." Now, in the wake of its release in the United Kingdom and France, the film is being hailed as a significant cinematic document on Islam—'the religion in crisis'—post 9/11.

"I hadn't anticipated this. I had shot and completed it much before the tragedy," says Masud. His is not the only 'relevant' camera. The menu at the recently concluded Cinefan, Cinemaya's prestigious festival of Asian cinema, showed Islam as the common concern binding a clutch of culturally diverse Asian films. Timely, considering the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have put the religion in the very eye of the storm.

Matir Moina, set against the backdrop of Bangladesh's war of independence, examines the split between moderate and extremist forces within a strict madrassa, in an ordinary Muslim family and the larger nation. The young protagonist, Anu, is sent off to a madrassa by his religious father Kazi even as Anu's rebellious, leftist uncle, Milon, resists religion and Pakistan. The film won the Fipresci international critics award at Cannes 2002.

Siddiq Barmak's Osama also shows a slice of the dreaded madrassa life through a child's eye. The first Afghan film made after the fall of the Taliban, Osama marked the country's debut at Cannes this year and earned a special mention from the jury. It's a heart-rending depiction of a young girl's efforts to survive the bigotry of the Taliban by donning the garb of a boy. T.V. Chandran's Lesson 1: A Wail looks at the practice of polygamy prevalent amongst Muslims in north Kerala, again through the perspective of a child. Shahina is an intelligent student whose life falls apart after she is forced to marry a man who already has a wife and child.

New Moon from the Philippines takes a different view of political, religious and social fundamentalism. Set against the backdrop of the war launched by the then President Joseph Estrada against the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, it focuses on a doctor's mission to heal people, be they Christian or Muslim, rebel or soldier—a symbolic triumph of liberalism over dogmatism.

Making films on such complex and sensitive issues could not have been too easy. The $300,000 Matir Moina was made with partial funding from the French government's Fond Sud, which allocates production grants in over 85 countries. Osama got partly funded by heavyweight Iranian director Mohsen Makhmalbaf ($21,000), who also provided the equipment and crew. Once ready, Masud's film had to face another struggle. Within Bangladesh it was seen as 'anti-Islam' and was initially rejected by the censors. He appealed against the decision and eventually got to release the film after incorporating a few cuts. "It was more important to reach out to people so I didn't resist the censor scissors," says Masud.

In dealing with Islam it was also incumbent on the films to tread on some dominant cliches—the religion's supposed militant spirit and backwardness, and the presumed element of oppression. Chandran's film talks about contentious issues of polygamy and divorce, and satirises the clergy. But in the largely claustrophobic scenario, there's also a liberal voice, however quiet and lonely. In the figure of Shahina's teacher, Chandran articulates the need for an individual to interpret and understand religion by himself rather than blindly follow the dictates of the clergy.

A still from Matir Moina

Osama dwells on the oppression of women at the hands of Muslim fundamentalists. A woman cannot step out without her husband, she's told not to wear high heels because it would arouse men.The Taliban trials, the mass public executions, the religious ablutions seem to fit in perfectly with the West's notions of a violent and regressive Islam. Even the title symbolises all that constitutes horror in the post-9/11 world. But, ultimately Osama is an empathetic, humane document because Barmak shows that there's enough resistance, renewal and hope within the repressed Afghan society. When a woman is sentenced to death, a meek voice of protest does ask whether there were any witnesses to the crime. And then the Taliban are not real Islam anyway, points out Barmak: "It's just indoctrination from outside. They are not normal Muslims, they're crazy men." He has his own sense of politics to articulate the turmoil in Islam. "Who created Osama? Who was the supporter of the fascist dictatorship? The oil companies of the West owe our nation an answer on why they made us a pawn in their game."

What works for Osama and to a greater extent for Matir Moina is that both offer an insider's view of Islam that critiques a religion without belittling it. Masud himself studied in a madrassa for seven years and his educated, Westernised, liberal father turned to Islam with a vengeance much like Kazi in Matir Moina. Masud's complex film offers neither confrontation nor conciliation with Islam. In fact, madrassas are not mere breeding grounds for the Taliban but peopled with fun-loving, intelligent kids. The liberal teacher at the school questions the use of Islam for political ends.

"There's a tendency to dehumanise Islam. Indirectly, I'm giving Islam a more humane face," says Masud. So even though Kazi might be stubborn and committed to Islam, his naive belief that Pakistanis will not harm the fellow Muslims of East Pakistan make him queerly pitiable and poignant. Masud also takes potshots at the leftists, at the "ultra secularists" in Bangladesh for whom "anything Islamic is bad". "Fanatics are worth listening to because to fight an enemy you have to understand him first," he says. According to him, Westerners too are equally fundamentalist: "They need to question their own perspective and knowledge of Islam."

Masud paints an idyllic picture of religious tolerance in rural Bangladesh. Its most potent reflection in the film is through music: the syncretic tradition of Baul gaan, a combination of Muslim Sufism, Hindu Vaishnavism and Buddhist mysticism. Another aural metaphor of protest is the Boyati sequence, a polemical debate through songs. "Islam has had a tradition of bahas (questioning) that seems to be declining. It's important to bring back the dialogues between different interpretations of Islam," he says. Even a reel life one would do.