Nothing Like It Was - New York Fifteen Years after 9/11

Germany, 2016, 26 min., documentary by Miodrag Soric and Stefan Czimmek

9/11 – there’s hardly any other date that represents so much throughout the world. For Americans, the experience of being vulnerable within their own country was a shock that they hadn’t had to suffer since Pearl Harbor. New York, a city which until then stood as hardly any other did for cosmopolitanism and liberalism, was affected the most. More than 2,700 people died in the towers of the World Trade Center alone. Those who escaped the terror attacks found unique ways to work through this day which changed their city forever. While the government responded with new security measures and tried to implement continual surveillance, the citizens of New York experienced years of mistrust and suspicion. Patriotism and citizen freedom, religion and tolerance, education and the idea of justice – the attack appears to have changed fundamental coordinates of American society. And it has left behind a feeling of deep uncertainty that refuses to go away.

Introduced and followed by a discussion with Miodrag Soric, bureau chief, Deutsche Welle Washington, who will talk about the making of the film and his observations about the impact of 9/11 on American society 15 years after the attacks.