11'09''01 September 11 (2002)

Eleven different Film Makers from different parts of the world are assembled in this film to present their views and ideas about the WTC attack. This is one of the best effort you will see in any Film. Films like this are rarely made and appreciated. This film tries to touch every possible core of WTC. Here are some of the most important stories from the film that makes this film so unique.There is the story from Samira Makhmalbaf (Iran) where somewhere in Iran people are preparing for the attacks from America. There a teacher is trying to educate her students by informing them about Innocent People being killed in WTC massacre. Then comes a story from Youssef Chahine (Egypt) where a Film Maker comes across face-to-face conversation with a Dead Soldier in the WTC attack and a Dead Hard Core Terrorist who was involved in WTC attack. Then we see a story from Idrissa Ouedraogo (Burkina Faso) where a group of Five Innocent children's sees Osama Bin Laden and plans to kidnap him and win the reward money from America. Then we see the story from Alejandro Gozalez Inarritu (Mexico) where you see a Black Screen and slowly you see the real footage of WTC buildings coming down. And the people who are stuck in the building are jumping out of it to save their lives. The other most important story is from Mira Nair (India) where a mother is struggling to get respect for her Dead Son whose name is falsely trapped in WTC massacre! After September 11 attack, Our heart beat automatically starts pumping if we hear two names anywhere in the world.. First is World Trade Centre and the second is Osama! This film totally changes our perception and makes a strong point by claiming something more to it.I will definitely recommend this movie to everyone who loves to have such kinds of Home DVD Collection. Definitely worth every penny you spend. But please don't expect anything more apart from Films in this DVD. There is of course Filmographies of the Film Makers but No Extra Features.

Not worth your time, your money, your emotions, your pity, your ability to articulate no matter how diminished. This is a totally subjective view point from a treasonous who espouses more sympathy for those that would destroy us rather than for the same country and system that helped him build his fortune. Hypocrisy at it's best/worst. Guys like Penn should be thankful that the same capitalistic, freedom loving system that he despises allows him him to have that very right. But he is too stupid to get that, or too manipulating. In years and eras gone by they would have tried him for treason or sedition and would have dealt with him in the most severe manner. What scares the most here is that there are those out there-many out there-that take what sewer water that spews out of the mouths of jerks like this and treat it as fact. Much like they did with that bloated self absorbed opportunist Michael Moore. Cmon hard core left, wake up-realize things aren't all bad and treat people based on fact and not well oiled innuendo and propaganda.

First than anything, I'm not going to praise Iñarritu's short film, even I'm Mexican and proud of his success in mainstream Hollywood.In another hand, I see most of the reviews focuses on their favorite (and not so) short films; but we are forgetting that there is a subtle bottom line that circles the whole compilation, and maybe it will not be so pleasant for American people. (Even if that was not the main purpose of the producers) What i'm talking about is that most of the short films does not show the suffering that WASP people went through because the terrorist attack on September 11th, but the suffering of the Other people.Do you need proofs about what i'm saying? Look, in the Bosnia short film, the message is: "You cry because of the people who died in the Towers, but we (The Others = East Europeans) are crying long ago for the crimes committed against our women and nobody pay attention to us like the whole world has done to you".Even though the Burkina Fasso story is more in comedy, there is a the same thought: "You are angry because Osama Bin Laden punched you in an evil way, but we (The Others = Africans) should be more angry, because our people is dying of hunger, poverty and AIDS long time ago, and nobody pay attention to us like the whole world has done to you".Look now at the Sean Penn short: The fall of the Twin Towers makes happy to a lonely (and alienated) man. So the message is that the Power and the Greed (symbolized by the Towers) must fall for letting the people see the sun rise and the flowers blossom? It is remarkable that this terrible bottom line has been proposed by an American. There is so much irony in this short film that it is close to be subversive.Well, the Ken Loach (very know because his anti-capitalism ideology) is much more clearly and shameless in going straight to the point: "You are angry because your country has been attacked by evil forces, but we (The Others = Latin Americans) suffered at a similar date something worst, and nobody remembers our grief as the whole world has done to you".It is like if the creative of this project wanted to say to Americans: "You see now, America? You are not the only that have become victim of the world violence, you are not alone in your pain and by the way, we (the Others = the Non Americans) have been suffering a lot more than you from long time ago; so, we are in solidarity with you in your pain... and by the way, we are sorry because you have had some taste of your own medicine" Only the Mexican and the French short films showed some compassion and sympathy for American people; the others are like a slap on the face for the American State, that is not equal to American People.

Definitely a spoiler or two, or three.....As a collection of films about how the world reacted to the September 11th terrorist attacks, this film is as mixed a bag as can be, and shows both the widely ranging views but also the aspirations of their directors.The two pieces that I thought really addressed the issues about 9/11 were the Afghanistan and Egyptian ones. The Afghan piece, showing the children not having a clue about 9/11, and dismissing much of it as god's will, was somewhat unnerving. The children's easy assumptions all too easily can also be seen as the hardened voices and ideology of adults.The Egyptian piece was the one that focused the most on the underlying conflicts behind 9/11, and the director was obviously involved in a lot of soul searching and questioning, seeing things in the larger context of world affairs and who's really right or wrong. I commend him on his honesty, even if his words are addressed across an impassable chasm. Suicide bombers are equated as freedom fighters, and very few people outside the Muslim world will accept that point of view. The Indian piece focused on 9/11 the event, (The Egyptian one did start off there) and presents the juxtaposition of a Muslim aid worker who went to help at the twin towers and dies, and is mistakenly believed later to have been a terrorist. It addresses well the conflicted emotions right after the event, but it is set in New York, and doesn't look at what India's views on 9/11 were at all.Others vary from good to simply awful. The one everyone talks about, the Mexican section by Inarritu, was an interesting film technique but didn't add much else narrative or discussion wise. The French and Burkina-Faso sections looked like the director's effort to show their skills and make a movie only incidentally about 9/11. The Burkina-Faso is really more a moral fable but adds some humor and levity in the midst of the more serious clips.Sean Penn's section was on the surface a good character study, and Ernest Borgnine turns in a fine performance as an elderly man living a life of routine with little to look forward to. However, the heavy handed symbolism is too much, Penn might as well cut to a shot of himself with a flashlight in the camera shouting, "Open your eyes! Can't you see?"The Israeli movie was a flop, it wasn't done very well and the director tries to keep up the hectic pace of a post-bombing chaos for the whole 11 minutes. The result is a camera panning back and forth across some obviously staged wreckage and the same four or five people running back and forth into camera view. It had a notable statement, but a poor execution.The British clip was the one that made the most people upset and caused some people at the showing I attended to walk out. I had to go home to look up who Allende was, and I wonder how long the good times in Chile under him would have lasted. There's no doubt Pinochet was a bad guy and the CIA was involved in putting him in power--but completely missing from the furious British director's movie and his UK located Chilean expatriate's narrative is how Pinochet went to Britain for medical treatment in 1997-1999 and several countries tried to extradite him for his crimes, which Britain refused to do. A movie so heavily casting the blame should look at the whole thing, not what fits the view best.The Japanese movie was the most different and confusing, and relates to 9/11 at best allegorically. Like the French and Burkina-faso pieces it too seems a flex at movie making over issues.Overall this movie will likely leave you feeling as conflicted as it's various shorts, and thinking about things for a long time after.