December 29, 2010

One sure-bet highlight at the Sundance Film Festival next month? The film Rebirth, conceived and created by Jim Whitaker, which took nine years to make.

Over the past decade, Project Rebirth's cameras followed ten people (five appear in the documentary), all of whom were directly affected by the September 11 attacks. During that same period, Whitaker and company also set up stationary cameras around the Ground Zero site, timing them to trigger every five seconds so as to create a time-lapse of growth, healing, and rebirth. The resulting film, which I saw at a New York screening last month at the Museum of Jewish Heritage, is inspiring and transfixing, if a tad long.

Next year will mark the tenth anniversary of the attacks. This documentary marks a new chapter in our visual and emotional understanding of the human toll of the tragedy.

(Also premiering at Sundance, Liz Garbus's documentary Bobby Fischer Against the World, which features my dear friend and oftimes journalistic partner, photographer Harry Benson, who appears prominently in Watching the World Change.)