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Interview with Amos Gitai about the 11’ 09” 01 - SEPTEMBER 11 project
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Where were you on September 11 2001? What did you feel when you learnt about these events?
- I was in Paris after returning from the Toronto Film Festival: I was due to return on the 11th, but Michel Propper urged me to advance the departure to the 10th, which in retrospect seemed a very smart move because people were stuck in Toronto. When I arrived in Paris on the morning of September 11, I was met at the airport by Laurent Truchot who took me on his Vespa to meet Marin Karmitz and sign the production contact for "Kedma". While the last details were negotiated in the early afternoon, we were told to turn on the television set and the news of the Twin Towers attack started to pour in. Television did not hesitate to use and reuse and reuse the spectacular dimension of this shocking news.
You are a very busy film-director. Yet you did not hesitate to answer this invitation: joining in a collective work based around the September 11 events in New York by making one of the 11 shorts. Why?
- I found the challenge fascinating and I like hard challenges.
Had you thought of expressing yourself around the events of September 11 before being asked to participate in '11’09’’01'?
- No.
What events or personal experiences did you want to bring to light through your short? What personal echo to the events of September 11?
- The way the media will treat a subject; The way of filming it; the bigger the better.
How did the idea of your film come to you? Immediately or after long consideration?
- After several reflections, and some early drafts in which I had other concepts.
Has the time constraint of 11 minutes, 9 seconds and one frame, imposed on every short, caused difficulties when constructing your story. How did you deal with it?
- I like it. I think that it is a good procedure to establish the general thematics and then to impose a formal length. I finally decided to shoot in one sequence shot of 1000 ft (300m)
How did the actors and the technicians make and experience their contributions to the film? How did the shooting progress?
- Good and exciting. They enjoyed the challenge of packing into a sequence shot a fragment of the dramatic reality of Israel and the way that it will be rejected.
Each director has built up his or her film without having the slightest inkling of what the others would do. Has this been a problem for you? How have you experienced or 'lived' this collective work?
- First no and then conceptually yes.
In your view, can the film bring new perspectives to a reflection on our contemporary world? Can cinema function as an instrument for peace?
- Cinema can have a destabilising effect on fixed conventions. This is a good role but probably not a direct way to change realities.
Do you think that the events of September 11 will influence your future films?.
- Yes, maybe.
Do you think there exists a 'before' and an 'after' September 11, such events constituting a rupture in contemporary history?
- Possibly, but let us leave our historians some space to create their own theories.
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