"In the wake of the September 11 attacks, New Yorkers from all walks of life felt compelled to overcome their sense of powerlessness by volunteering to help out in the recovery effort. They brought in supplies, set up relief stations, and for ten months fed and cared for the recovery workers. Many deep and unexpected — even unlikely — relationships developed out of this.
Using cinema verite footage, interviews and archival photographs, we follow several characters through a series of events reuniting them with each other after the closing of the site. Through their stories we present a portrait of the city within a city that was Ground Zero, and examine how an extremely diverse group of people transcended politics and culture in an effort to heal their city and themselves.
9/12: From Chaos to Community — a 60-minute character-driven documentary — is a vibrant, moving, sometimes funny, sometimes painful portrayal of hope and healing in the wake of disaster."
This is a difficult moment in our history to celebrate, mourn, remember because of how it has been coopted to make endless war. But, the stories here seem real and lasting and discuss how New Yorkers began to heal after such a callous and destructive event.
A book I read last year also was a beautiful book about healing after September 11. It is called Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. It is one of the first novels to deal with the aftermath of 9/11 (written by Jonathan Safran Foer), but does so in such a gentle and heartfelt way I found myself thinking of the book months afterwards.
1 comment:
Kid,
I also read that book, and it is a really novel way of telling a story connected to an event, without letting the event run the story. Through the eyes of a child, the reader feels loss and shame, and the hurt that comes with being a part of a family that has, like most, suffered.
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