olitical Films in Amsterdam and Dubai

The city of Dubai opens its first international film festival next week with many controversial political movies that will be seen by Arab audiences for the first time. The six-day festival, beginning next Monday, has 75 films from Arab and South Asian countries, including "Control Room," the documentary on Al Jazeera, the Qatar-based Arabic news network, and "The Hamburg Cell," a look at members of the group behind the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks who lived in Germany. Among the lighter fare is Steven Soderbergh's "Ocean's Twelve," with appearances of Hollywood celebrities scheduled, like the producer Harvey Weinstein and the actors Sarah Michelle Gellar and Morgan Freeman. ... In Amsterdam, which has been punctuated by ethnic clashes since a Dutch filmmaker was killed by a suspected Islamic militant earlier this month, a Dutch film that addresses Islamic radicalism in Indonesia has won the top prize at the International Documentary Film Festival, The Associated Press reported. The film, "Stand Van De Maan" ("Shape of the Moon"), above, directed by Leonard Retel Helmrich, follows an Indonesian Christian woman who struggles against unemployment and her country's growing Islamic fundamentalism. At least 20 Muslim sites in the Netherlands have been attacked since Theo van Gogh, who made a film about mistreatment of Muslim women, was shot and stabbed to death in Amsterdam on Nov. 2.

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Too Bright a Building

The new Frank Gehry-designed Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, right, is just too brilliant. That is the conclusion, anyway, of a new report to the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, which will decide whether to sandblast portions of the building's shimmering facade of stainless steel to reduce its glare on motorists. Although no traffic accidents are known to have been caused by the building's reflected light, consultants found that the rays irritate drivers and cause temperatures on nearby sidewalks to rise as high as 138 degrees, The Daily News of Los Angeles reported. The county supervisors are to decide on the sandblasting in January; as a temporary solution, a gray mesh fabric was placed over one section.

Wales Center Opens

Last month Wales was invisible: the country was inadvertently left off the official map on the cover of a European Union annual report, causing a minor furor. Over the weekend, however, Wales established itself firmly on the international cultural map with the opening of its long-awaited Wales Millennium Center, a $200 million complex on the waterfront overlooking Cardiff Bay. Designed by the Percy Thomas Partnership, the center includes a 1,900-seat theater for opera, theater and dance and was constructed using local materials, like recycled slate and hardwood; its texture and unusual shape have given it the nickname the Armadillo. Opening events involved appearances by a roster of international artists, many of Welsh origin, including the operatic star Bryn Terfel, the crossover singers Charlotte Church and Michael Ball, as well as tributes to the singers Shirley Bassey and Gwyneth Jones and the actors Sian Phillips and Richard Burton. The first full season at the center begins on Thursday with the Welsh singer and comedian Max Boyce and a play, "The Good, the Bad and the Cuddly." PAM KENT

Humanities Prize

The Library of Congress will award its second annual $1 million Kluge Prize for lifetime contribution to the humanities to two scholars of religion, the American historian Jaroslav Pelikan, above right, and the French philosopher Paul Ricoeur, right. The prize, to be awarded on Wednesday, recognizes work in anthropology, philosophy, history and the study of religion, for which there are no Nobel prizes. Mr. Pelikan, 80, was the Sterling Professor of History at Yale, the highest academic honor there. His most acclaimed work, "The Christian Tradition: A History and Development of Doctrine," helped to integrate the story of the Eastern Christian tradition into the overall history of Christianity. Mr. Ricoeur, 91, held the chair of general philosophy at the Sorbonne during the 1960's and the chair of the divinity school at the University of Chicago through the 80's. His works, including "Finitude and Culpability," "Freud and Philosophy: An Essay on Interpretation" and "Time and Narrative," contributed to the development of hermeneutics, the study of the interpretation of texts. The winners were selected by a five-member panel of scholars and will share the money. The award was conceived by James H. Billington, the librarian of Congress, and financed by the philanthropist John W. Kluge, who gave the library $73 million in 2000 for library projects, including the prizes and a new scholar center. Last year's recipient was the Polish philosopher Leszek Kolakowski. JOHN FILES

Welsh to Direct Film

Irvine Welsh, the acerbic Scottish novelist whose book "Trainspotting" was adapted into the acclaimed 1996 film of the same name, is planning to direct a new movie, according to British news reports. Mr. Welsh is to direct "The Man Who Walks," according to a producer, Mark Cousins, who runs a production company with Mr. Welsh. The writer is to begin the project when he finishes with his latest film, "Meat Trade," a black comedy set in a hospital in Edinburgh.

Pop CD's in Release

New albums tomorrow include a heavy dose of hip-hop amid the season's usual tidal wave of holiday CD's and "American Idol" spinoffs. The Queens-born rapper Nas releases his long-delayed "Street's Disciple" (Columbia), an autobiographical double album with guest spots by Busta Rhymes, Maxwell and Nas's fiancˇe, Kelis; it includes "Thief's Theme," a single that raised eyebrows and volume knobs this summer for its sample of Iron Butterfly's 1968 proto-metal classic "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida." Jay-Z, ostensibly retired, continues to make records by collaborating with others, and his current tag-team project, "Collision Course" (Warner/Roc-A-Fella), is with the hard-rock band Linkin Park. Other albums in release tomorrow include "Urban Legend" (Atlantic) by the rapper T.I.; the "American Idol" star Kelly Clarkson's "Breakaway" (RCA); the R&B star Gerald Levert's "Do I Speak for the World?" (Atlantic); Simon and Garfunkel's "Old Friends Live on Stage" (Warner Brothers), a live album from the duo's reunion tour last year; the electronic group Dirty Vegas's "One" (Capitol); and the latest re-recording of Band Aid's "Do They Know It's Christmas?," the British charity single for African relief recorded by an ad hoc group of British pop stars, among them Bono, Dido, Coldplay's Chris Martin and members of the Darkness, Keane and Travis.

Footnotes

Robert Lopez and Jeff Marx, below, who wrote the music and lyrics for the multiple-Tony-winning musical "Avenue Q," will play their first full public concert tonight at 7 at Birdland, the jazz club on West 44th Street. They will be performing hits from "Avenue Q" as well as some "trunk songs." Special guests are promised - will they be made out of felt or flesh?

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