How eleven filmmakers from eleven different nations captured a single day

Art · Published 19 October 2026 · Updated 22 October 2026 Swipe more like this →

In short: In 2002, an international anthology film attempted to process the 2001 terrorist attacks through a rigid, mathematical lens. By restricting every segment to exactly 11 minutes, 9 seconds, and one frame, the project sought to unify global perspectives on a tragedy that fractured the world.

Produced by Alain Brigand, the anthology film 11′09″01 September 11 serves as a mosaic of global trauma. The structure is strictly symbolic: the film comprises 11 short segments, each directed by a filmmaker from a different country, with every segment lasting precisely 11 minutes, 9 seconds, and 1 frame. This precise timing mirrors the date of the attacks on the Twin Towers in New York City.

The segments offer vastly different narrative lenses, ranging from the personal to the political. One segment follows a young French photographer in New York who survives the attack, while another explores the life of Mohammad Salman Hamdani, a 23-year-old research assistant whose death at the site was initially shrouded in media suspicion and investigation by the CIA and FBI. Other stories connect the 2001 attacks to historical scars, such as a Chilean refugee in London reflecting on the 1973 coup led by Augusto Pinochet, or a segment in Bosnia-Herzegovina linking the date to the 1995 Srebrenica massacre.

The film's scope extends to the far reaches of the globe, including Burkina Faso, where children attempt to capture a man they believe to be Osama bin Laden to claim a 25 million prize, and Japan, which uses a story of a soldier with post-traumatic disorder in 1945 to reflect on the nature of 'holy wars.' By weaving together these disparate threads—from the streets of Queens to Afghan refugee camps—the anthology attempts to illustrate how a single moment in New York resonated through the collective memory of the international community.

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