Welcome to America.

I normally don't read Leah Garchik's gossip column in the San Francisco Chronicle, but this item caught my eye while I was doing the Sudoku:

The Arab Film Festival opened at the Clay Theatre on Thursday with a showing of "Making Of," a movie about a young man lured by Islamic terrorists, whom he rejects in the end. Its star, Tunisian actor Lotfi Abdelli, was an invited guest, his visa having been obtained by festival officials with the help of Nancy Pelosi's office.

But upon arriving at San Francisco Airport, Abdelli was detained by security officials for 41/2 hours. They peppered him with repeated questions, took his cell phone, asked him to identify every person in its directory, to translate every note in Arabic on the device and asked him "all the time, the same question: Why am I here? ... About people I know, people I don't know." Abdelli was carrying a DVD of his movie, which they watched and concluded "my film is glorifying terrorists. I said, 'No, my film is against this.' " (Ironically, Bashir Anastas, festival executive director, has received complaints from community members who thought the film too critical of Muslims.)

The interrogators "left, they came back. They were very polite," said Abdelli, but the questions went on. A filmmaker traveling companion, let through immediately, waited for him, along with board president Kathy Kenny. Abdelli had no chance to call for help. "They asked me all the time the questions, I was a little bit lost." Kenny described him emerging from the ordeal as "traumatized and humiliated."

To his interrogators, said Abdelli, "Artist or not, you are Arabic, you are young, you have potential." The festival (www.aff.org) continues at the Roxie until Thursday, and then at the California Theatre in Berkeley through Sunday.