Program of films created in response to Sept. 11 will screen at CU Cinema

Experimental and documentary filmmakers respond to both the events and the media coverage of Sept. 11 in the program "Underground Zero," presented by project organizer and filmmaker Jay Rosenblatt on Friday, April 12, at 7:15 p.m. in Willard Straight Theatre. On the following night, April 13, Rosenblatt presents a program of his own short collage films at 7:15 p.m. in Willard Straight Theatre. Admission to these events is $5 general/$4 students and seniors.

When media coverage of the terrorist attacks and their aftermath seemed to enter an endless loop of repeated footage and superficial rhetoric, San Francisco filmmakers Rosenblatt and Caveh Zahedi decided to turn their feelings of frustration into creation. "Caveh and I were feeling so despairing, powerless and unfocused," Rosenblatt said. "We concluded that collective action would be more powerful than isolated individual action. We don't have a political agenda; we just wanted something other than what we're being fed by the media."

They invited friends and colleagues to create short films that could help people cope with the complicated emotions and effects of Sept. 11. The resulting collaborative project, "Underground Zero," is a compilation of 1- to 10-minute personal shorts by various filmmakers intended to give voice to diverse responses within the independent film community -- cutting across race, ethnicity, class, gender, sexuality and religion. Rosenblatt's own contribution, "Prayer," will be screened, along with other works ranging from the cultural critique of Norman Cowie's "Three Scenes from an Endless War" to the highly personal "My Cat, My Garden and 9/11" by Anne Robertson and Paul Harrill's "Brief Encounter with Tibetan Monks," which attempts to find answers -- but only produces more questions -- from a group of Tibetan monks on tour in the South.

Rosenblatt, who studied film with Cornell Professor Don Fredericksen, also will present a program of his short films, which are mosaics combining educational movies from the '50s and '60s, newsreels, Hollywood clips, historical footage, home movies and a rich trove of archival materials.

Rosenblatt's visit is co-sponsored by the Cornell Council for the Arts and the Electronic and Film Arts Grants program of the Experimental Television Center, which is supported by the New York State Council on the Arts.