Robert David Port couldn’t have known what he was getting into when he and a three-man crew began filming the NYPD’s Emergency Service Unit in mid-2001.
He wanted to shoot a TV pilot about what he called “the commandos of the NYPD.” However, the story of Port’s series changed when many of the men he was filming died on Sept. 11, 2001. The Emergency Service Unit was among the first groups to be called to duty, so the men were some of the first to die as the World Trade Center towers collapsed.
Port combined his footage with some interviews he filmed with survivors from the group to form “Twin Towers.” The UCLA Film and TV Archive will screen the Oscar-winning 34-minute short for free tonight in the James Bridges Theater, followed by a screening of “Telling Nicholas,” another Sept. 11-related documentary. The night of screenings will kick off the Archive’s 22nd annual “Academy/Contemporary Documentaries” series, to be held Wednesday nights throughout the academic year. Port and co-director Bill Guttentag will be present at tonight’s screening.
“I’m happy I won an Academy (Award), but that’s not the way I wanted to win it,” Port said. “What I’m proud of is that a hundred years from now, this will be the quintessential 9/11 film.”
The screenings will highlight documentaries nominated for 2002 Academy Awards, as well as other recent documentaries.
“There’s a lot of exciting work and a lot of high-profile documentaries getting wide release,” said Mimi Brody, an associate programmer at the Archive. “Documentaries are no longer exclusively the work of festivals or cable television.”
While the themes presented in the first night of the series’ screenings may be heavy, not all of the documentaries presented will be difficult to watch. The more light-hearted and often funny “Spellbound,” which follows the private lives of eight aspiring spelling bee champs, will screen Oct. 8.
“We try to program things thematically,” Brody said. “We wouldn’t program something comedic with something gut-wrenching.”
Though both “Twin Towers” and “Telling Nicholas” fall neatly into the gut-wrenching category, they are not entirely depressing films. Guttentag emphasized his desire to turn his original footage into a film that paid tribute to those who died on Sept. 11. According to Guttentag, the most important part of “Twin Towers” is its ability to show audiences what actually happened to the people involved in the tragedy.
“The film will be a record of what happened on 9/11 for everyone, from UCLA students to the president of the United States,” Guttentag said.
The president has already given “Twin Towers” his approval. Port and Guttentag screened their film at the White House recently, receiving a heartfelt, positive response from George W. Bush and various members of his administration.
“(Bush) said ‘I’ll never forget that until the day I die,’” Port said. “For a bunch of schmucks from Hollywood, we did something good here.”
“Twin Towers” and “Telling Nicholas” screen for free tonight at 7:30 p.m. in the James Bridges Theater. For information on more upcoming screenings, visit www.cinema.ucla.edu.