by Rick Lyman

And then there is "Dogma," the controversial new film written and directed by Kevin Smith.

"I hate that," said Mr. Smith, who had his first success with "Clerks" in 1994. "It's never just "Dogma": it's always "the controversial "Dogma." "I know I should be a little happy because we're getting some publicity out of it, but I'd rather do without that publicity." He shook his head. "It's been a long six months," he said.

The film tells the story of two fallen angels, played by Matt Damon and Ben Affleck (pic below left), banished to Wisconsin for eternity, who think they have found a loophole to get back into heaven. Unfortunately, if they do, it will cause a cosmic chain reaction that will mena the end of all life on earth. So another talking angel, played by Alan Rickman, talks a descendant of Jesus, an abortion-clinic worker played by Linda Fiorentino into trying to thwart the angels' plan.

The film was initially backed by Miramax, a part of the Disney empire, but when word got out about it's subject, several religious groups complained that its theme was anti-Catholic and demanded that Disney not release it. Harvey Weinstein, co-chairman of Miramax, agreed to buy back the negative from Disney and sell it to another distributor so that neither Disney nor Miramax would have any connection to it.

"Harvey was great," said Mr. Smith, who was in the middle of a series of public screenings and interviews at the Toronto festival. "The film is not anti-Catholic, it is not sacrilegious. If anything, it's faith affirming. But having it at Disney just made us both too big a target."

The movie was finally picked up this month by Lions Gate Films for distribution in North America and is set to open in November. The press and industry screenings in Toronto drew a mixed response, not so much because of the religious content but because of the broadness of some of the humor. The film seemed to go over well at its public screening.

"The problem is that the people who are criticizing the film haven't seen it," Mr. Smith said. "If they do, they may not think it's funny,l but I don't think they'll be able to call it anti-Catholic."

Mr. Smith said that in the next few months he intended to work on an animated series he was making for ABC. Six episodes are scheduled to appear next spring, and if they are successful, subsequent installments may be ordered. Based on "Clerks," the series follows the same characters, in animated form, through fresh adventures, admittedly not as R-rated as the ones they encountered in the film.

"This is the PG material that my mother always wanted me to make," Mr. Smith said. "She's always saying to me: 'Why do you have to use those words in your movies? Why do they have to talk like that.'"

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