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American Morning

Annual Sundance Film Festival Going on in Utah Right Now

Aired January 14, 2002 - 07:50   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: The annual Sundance Film Festival going on in Utah right now has been much more emotionally charged than in previous years. Only four months have passed since the terrorist attacks of September 11th, but nearly a third of the documentaries showcased this year at the festival deal with the pain and suffering of those attacks. CNN's Paul Clinton got the aisle seat in Park City, Utah and filed this report.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You don't (UNINTELLIGIBLE) and it's not our style.

PAUL CLINTON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: "From the Ashes" is one of five documentaries about September 11th screening at the Sundance Film Festival. Director Deborah Shaffer (ph) follows numerous artists who worked and lived in the shadows of the World Trade Center, showing how the tragedy of that (UNINTELLIGIBLE).

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They run in the building when we're running out. I mean they had to know they were going to die.

CLINTON: The documentaries dealing with the 9-11 tragedies screening here at Sundance all approached the event from very different points of view, but none are meant to be the final word.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: There's no way it could be definitive. It's four months since it happened. I mean I feel very unresolved about what it meant, why it happened, what our next move should be, how we should deal with it.

CLINTON: Through a variety of images, the films captured the mood of New York and the spirit of its residents.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I had a little mini videocamera in my bag and I pulled it out to film some of the sites, and immediately started becoming obsessed with these faces, this sort of soul (ph) opening up on people when they arrived at the site and started looking up and up in the air at something that wasn't there.

CLINTON: (UNINTELLIGIBLE) penetrated deep into the shattered landscape with his camera. He decided not to embellish his film with music. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You were working on a cemetery without tombstone, so that's a particular atmosphere, and that's why in the film we left all the sounds, all the natural sounds.

CLINTON: The Sundance program included the haunting images of a trade center victim who foresaw the threat of terrorism and the emotional sound of people brought together to record a new version of "We Are Family", 11 days after the attack.

Paul Clinton, CNN, Park City, Utah.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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