By Claudia Parsons

NEW YORK, April 26 (Reuters) - The Iraq war is one of the hottest U.S. political issues, but the director of a new documentary about the soldiers serving there says he keeps being told that nobody wants to see his film.

John Laurence's movie, "I am an American Soldier," which follows members of the elite 101st Airborne Division on a year-long tour of duty in Iraq, has its premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York on Thursday.

But Laurence, a war correspondent who covered Vietnam and was embedded with U.S. troops in the March 2003 invasion of Iraq, said he was having difficulty securing distribution.

"The film has been seen by some people in the distribution business and they all tell us that Iraq war films don't do well," Laurence told reporters before the premiere.

Laurence did not set out to make a film that was either pro- or anti-war. "We set out to make a film from the soldiers' point of view that was not going to be political," he said.

The film offers an unusually intimate portrait of a small group of men before, during and after their deployment.

There are scenes of wives holding back tears as their loved ones leave, and towards the end a father sobbing at a memorial service for the 18 members of the unit who did not come back.

But while it shows the soldiers' human side -- such as when an army medic weeps after failing to save an Iraqi child killed by a suicide car bomb -- the film is also depicts failures and frustrations.

One person featured in the film is Col. Michael Steele, since reprimanded for his handling of a case in which two soldiers have pleaded guilty to murdering three Iraqi detainees and two others pleaded guilty to lesser charges. Lawyers for some of the men had said they were acting under orders to kill all men of military age.

Laurence said the film deliberately avoids the incident as he was not present. He said combative speech by Steele in the film did not amount to instructions to ignore rules of engagement, though it might be seen as "very aggressive."

Laurence said he heard the frustration of soldiers and commanders in the field.

"We found out ... that the soldiers ... are not fighting for their country, they're not proud to be there because they're fighting for fellow Americans. They're in Iraq to survive and try to save each other if they can," he said.

"They go to war expecting to make a difference, to serve their country, to kill a lot of insurgents, to help win the war, advance the cause, and train up the Iraqis," he said.

"And they end up after a year realizing that's not going to happen and that's the tragedy of their experience in Iraq."

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