LEWISTON – Two years after former Lewiston Mayor Larry Raymond penned his letter to the city, the movie “The Letter” is being prepared for its theatrical release.

The documentary tells the story of Lewiston’s Somalis: their flight from Somalia, their arrival here and the controversy that began with Raymond’s letter.

Documentary filmmaker Ziad Hamzeh has signed with a Seattle-based company, Arab Film Distribution, to release the movie in art house cinemas.

They’ll begin in New York City. If all goes well, the film could be released in art houses across the country and vie for an Academy Award.

“It’ll roll out from there,” producer Bert Brown said Thursday. “There’s still a lot of life in the movie.”

In Maine, the film could be shown in venues such as Railroad Square Cinema in Waterville and The Movies on Exchange in Portland.

The mayor’s “open letter to the community” asked local Somalis to spread the word: The city had reached its limit. Raymond asked Somalis to stop coming in such large numbers.

Instead, the national media came. So did white supremacists.

The story is told in the 75-minute movie, which premiered last November at the American Film Institute’s International Film Festival in Los Angeles.

Since its premiere, the film has been making the rounds of film festivals and has garnered universally strong reviews.

Yet, the politics have scared some.

“Its implications are a lot larger than the one city,” Brown said. “It’s about immigration and racism in America.”

The film includes footage of the twin rallies held on Jan. 11, 2003. The sequence at the Lewiston rallies – one for peace and unity, the other for hate – intercuts between neo-Nazis’ talk of “race mixing” and pleas for peace by people including Gov. John Baldacci.

Some distribution companies have been frightened by the content, Brown said.

Yet, demand for copies of the film was so high that Hamzeh’s company, Hamzeh Mystique Films, began selling videotapes to schools and libraries months ago.

They hope the demand will continue to theaters, which are already experiencing a documentary renaissance.

Begun by small films such as “Capturing the Friedmans” and “Spellbound,” the recent surge became a boom this year with “Fahrenheit 9/11” and “Super Size Me.”

As they have with reality TV shows, people have discovered that they can see a movie that’s real and be entertained too, Brown said.