There is an increasing interest in substituting today's films for food packaging applications with films based on renewable resources. For this purpose, rye arabinoxylans, unmodified and enzymatically debranched, were studied for the preparation of neat films and composite films reinforced with bacterial cellulose (BC). Mixing in a homogenizer produced optically transparent, uniform films. Physical and mechanical characteristics of such films are here reported. Debranching of the arabinoxylan caused an increase in its crystallinity of 20%. Debranching as well as reinforcement with BC resulted in a decrease of the moisture sorption of the films. The debranching also resulted in a reduced breaking strain while the reinforcement with BC increased stiffness and strength of the films. (C) 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci 122: 1030-1039, 2011