Surviving 9/11
Monday 30 August 2021
21:00
BBC Two
Director: Arthur Cary
Executive Producer: Darren Kemp
Monday 30 August 2021
21:00
BBC Two
Director: Arthur Cary
Executive Producer: Darren Kemp
Twenty years on from 9/11, BAFTA-winning director Arthur Cary takes a look at one of the defining historical events of the post-war era.
Broadcast live around the world like horrifying theatre, 9/11 is a moment in history that everyone over a certain age can remember, and knows exactly where they were when it happened. But what was it like to actually live through, and how easy is it to move on from a day that society wants to go on remembering?
This film brings together 13 ordinary people who were caught in an event they weren't able to fully comprehend at the time, and that they are still working through with the benefit of hindsight.
Surviving 9/11 is a deeply personal film, intertwining two separate narratives: the two-hour period when terrorists hijacked four planes and crashed three of them into The Twin Towers and The Pentagon, and the story of the 20 years since. Blending powerful testimony from American and British interviewees and personal and public archive, the story of the day unfolds almost in real time, while contemporary scenes explore how the lives of individuals continue to be affected by those moments.
Contributors range from survivors, first responders and family members of victims. They include Vanessa from Scotland, who was taking part in an artists' residency on the 91st floor of the North Tower in New York; Bill, a firefighter from Staten Island who miraculously survived both towers collapsing around him; Malcolm, who lost his son Geoff and every anniversary camps alone on a mountain in Wales where he was when he first heard the news about the attacks; Heather, who was a newly qualified fighter pilot and took to the skies that day, prepared to ram the tail of United 93, the hijacked plane that was headed for Washington DC.
The attacks happened in America, but they changed the world - and they continue to define the lives of many who survived them.
Broadcast live around the world like horrifying theatre, 9/11 is a moment in history that everyone over a certain age can remember, and knows exactly where they were when it happened. But what was it like to actually live through, and how easy is it to move on from a day that society wants to go on remembering?
This film brings together 13 ordinary people who were caught in an event they weren't able to fully comprehend at the time, and that they are still working through with the benefit of hindsight.
Surviving 9/11 is a deeply personal film, intertwining two separate narratives: the two-hour period when terrorists hijacked four planes and crashed three of them into The Twin Towers and The Pentagon, and the story of the 20 years since. Blending powerful testimony from American and British interviewees and personal and public archive, the story of the day unfolds almost in real time, while contemporary scenes explore how the lives of individuals continue to be affected by those moments.
Contributors range from survivors, first responders and family members of victims. They include Vanessa from Scotland, who was taking part in an artists' residency on the 91st floor of the North Tower in New York; Bill, a firefighter from Staten Island who miraculously survived both towers collapsing around him; Malcolm, who lost his son Geoff and every anniversary camps alone on a mountain in Wales where he was when he first heard the news about the attacks; Heather, who was a newly qualified fighter pilot and took to the skies that day, prepared to ram the tail of United 93, the hijacked plane that was headed for Washington DC.
The attacks happened in America, but they changed the world - and they continue to define the lives of many who survived them.
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