PUBLIC LIVES; Capturing Qaddafi's Gun-Toting Women on Film

IT is anyone's guess what will become of Rania Ajami's filmmaking career. But Ms. Ajami, who is 25 and a New York University graduate film student, certainly knows how to get attention. Her first feature documentary, spun out of a class assignment, is about the elite female corps of bodyguards assigned to Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi of Libya.

You might have seen the guards; the eye-catching, gun-toting women in paramilitary uniforms. Some are knockouts. And they will knock you out, too, if you mess with their supreme leader. Some wear lipstick, jewelry, polished nails, even high heels. Last month, the Western world got a few glimpses of them as they backed up Colonel Qaddafi when he visited European Union officials in Brussels.

The mind conjures up all sorts of fantastical images, like the Libyan dictator as the singer Robert Palmer, the suave pop Romeo whose hit ''Addicted to Love'' had him backed by a band of deadpan sleek women in little black dresses.

But Ms. Ajami, who is of Lebanese origin, will have none of this nonsense during a chat the other day. She hopes to dash simplistic ideas with her new film, ''Qaddafi's Female Bodyguards: Shadows of a Leader.'' The documentary, which is yet to be sold or distributed, is an official selection at the Montreal World Film Festival, the Avignon/New York Film Festival and the Festival du Film de Strasbourg.

''It's showing the notion of the female bodyguard as being these women who are liberated and how it extends to all sectors of society,'' she says in a soft British accent, mellowed perhaps by her undergraduate years at Princeton, where she majored in English literature and minored in theater and dance. ''Bodyguards are really a symbol of this new feminism that exists. One wonders, once Qaddafi is no longer there, will the women still have this future? Do they have a future without him?''

She says that while the bodyguards may exude sexuality, it demonstrates modern views on gender equality and family life under the Qaddafi regime. ''They present themselves well. The girls are trained in weaponry, but at the same time they want to look good. I really felt it was more about their pride and confidence. Most of the women who go into it are married with children.''