"This dramatic event was a canvas for us to make our films. Americans might rightfully or wrongfully want to see recycled images of the towers but that's not our objective as directors," he added.
How do you like this canvas, Mr. Gitai?
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Posted on 09/06/2002 6:09:45 AM PDT by Pharmboy
VENICE (Reuters) - After last year's attacks on the United States, President Bush ( news - web sites) declared "You're either with us or against us." But film directors exploring the world's reaction to Sept. 11 say things are not that black and white.
Almost a year after suicide hijackers killed more than 3,000 people and brought down New York's World Trade Center towers, the Venice Film Festival is abuzz with discussion about "11'09"01 September 11" -- 11 directors' responses to the day America came under attack.
Some of the short films have been accused of anti-Americanism, linking U.S. foreign policy to violence in the Middle East and the 1973 coup in Chile. Others suggest the United States has forgotten pain and poverty elsewhere in the world.
"Voices from across the globe should be heard," one of the directors, Mexican Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, told a festival news conference Friday.
"It will make people think, feel, reflect, consider others and ask themselves questions about what they are doing," the director of "Amores Perros" added.
Iranian director Samira Makhmalbaf agreed, calling the collection of short films -- each 11 minutes and nine seconds long -- "a healthy dialogue rather than a monologue."
Some U.S. viewers at the film's first screening Thursday said they were angered by a lack of solidarity with the United States but other film goers praised it as the best thing they had seen at the festival.
"I think criticism is healthy," said "11'09"01" producer Alain Brigand. "Just because you criticize a country it does not mean you want to undermine it."
"NOT CNN"
The five directors promoting the film in Venice insisted they would not have signed up to the project if they had had to follow an editorial line.
"This isn't CNN," said Israel's Amos Gitai, whose contribution shows a journalist trying to report live from a suicide attack in Tel Aviv only to be told something more important is happening in New York.
"This dramatic event was a canvas for us to make our films. Americans might rightfully or wrongfully want to see recycled images of the towers but that's not our objective as directors," he added.
As well as questioning the U.S. role in global politics, some films translated the attacks, blamed on Saudi-born militant Osama bin Laden ( news - web sites)'s al Qaeda network, onto a human level.
Gonzalez Inarritu created a script from witness accounts of the attacks and radio station callers demanding death for terrorists and their families shown against a black screen with flashes of people jumping out of the burning towers.
"What was scary for me was hearing Bush's speeches and bin Laden's speeches. They were all about God and good and evil -- the terminology was the same," he said.
France's Claude Lelouch told the Sept. 11 story through the life of a deaf woman breaking up with her boyfriend.
"The human level has always been more important than world events. For some the end of a relationship is the end of the world," he said.
The woman's prayer for a reconciliatory miracle is answered when the man comes back to her covered in dust after the Twin Towers collapsed.
"It was a horrid drama but, as always, something good came out of it for somebody," said Lelouch.
Yeah--you idiot--they're the same. This is the kind of comment that draws no question from a "journalist."
"This dramatic event was a canvas for us to make our films. Americans might rightfully or wrongfully want to see recycled images of the towers but that's not our objective as directors," he added.
How do you like this canvas, Mr. Gitai?
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I'm just so thrilled that some woman got back with her boyfriend, just makes it all worthwhile......I can't believe I cried so much for the thousands of others, if only I'd of known what a wonderful human experience was happening behind scenes........ (GAG)for frigging morons
Tanovic is on record for knowing that those kiled were soldiers. Nice touch to thank America and The Academy of The Motion Pictures for giving him an Academy Award for best foreign film.
An example how America feeds those who bite and hate her.
Also, the post does not mention another remarkable contribution from Egyptian director - a story about the ghost of the Marine killed in terrorist attack in Beirut.
This "One frame" thing is nothing but a frame-up aimed to sell jihadist story to unsuspecting goodhearted Americans.
IMHO, film should be FREEPED or banned on grounds of insulting the memory of the dead.
I don't get your conclusion. The international elites are anti-American all time. Why would reports of anti-Americanism in a film made by French, Mexican, Iranian, etc. directors cause you to disbelieve that it is?
Almost as if they are claiming anti-Americanism, just to get us to go see it for ourselves.
Every bit as good an idea as when they blew up the World Trade Center and Pentagon.
Why? It happened to US, not them. I don't give a damn what they think about it.
"It will make people think, feel, reflect, consider others and ask themselves questions about what they are doing," the director of "Amores Perros" added.
All together now, "Feelings, whoa-oh-oh, feelings..."
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