DIFF recap

The Dubai Film Festival was awesome. When you live here, it becomes kind of depressing that there are so few good movies to watch. But the festival was filled with really high quality independent films, mostly directed and/or focused upon the Middle East. Of course, the movies I went to tended to have a more political slant to them (ie. Blood of my Brother, Seeds of Doubt, Tender is the Wolf). After each film, there was a Q&A session with the director and sometimes actors from the film. I was surprised by how often the line of questionning ended up with fairly impassioned criticism and anger at the United States. Granted many of the films were fairly politicized and perhaps the forum attracted people with a higher than average propensity for political discussions. But does all political criticism in this region need to be directed at the US? I guess living abroad has made me more patriotic or something but really, is the United States really to blame for every grievance or problem in this region?