Country No.1 - Fall 2001 in New York / Documentary, 60min, SWR, Filmakademie B.-W., MFG / here: Film
First Steps Nominee / Best Student Film Award, Kalamata Int'l Filmfestival
Almost 15 years after 9/11 'Country No.1' takes on a travel back in time to the fall of 2001 when official history was not yet written. Shortly after September 11th I traveled to a New York that was under worldwide surveillance. My impulse was to contrast the omnipresent TV-imagery and its attempt to incorporate the event into an official narrative. I was looking for images of every-day-life, which continued in the shadow of the spectacular incident. I wanted to witness how 'simple' New Yorkers were impacted and how they tried to create their own narratives in order to deal with the event individually. Thus I found four protagonists, who for me represent a cross section and who all worked in common places such as a newsstand, a shoeshine, a barbershop and directly on the streets like Scott the mural painter. By combining their stories with uncommented images of the work at ground zero and the beginning of a remembrance culture, I tried to relate different aspects of the 'history-in-the-making'-process and raise the question of what could become. So in the review 'Country No.1' is a time travel to a point where it wasn't yet decided what had to happen and thus allows the reflection on whether or why history became what it is today.