Summary of 102 Minutes that changed America

102 Minutes That Changed Americais a 102-minute American documentary filmproduced byHistory-channel and sold free on September 11, 2008, marking the seventh anniversary of the2001 attacks. The film deals with the New York events of the attacks primarily using rawfootagefrom mostly amateurcitizen journalists.

The documentary is accompanied by an 18-minute documentary short calledI-Witness to 9/11, which features interviews with nine firsthand eyewitnesses who captured the footage on camera. The documentary film attracted 5.2 million viewers and the program aired on the UK, in France, in Brazil and in the Netherlands too.

In the first part of the documentary you can see on the screen a clock going onfrom 8:48 to 8:49 and then a scene of the North Tower hit by the first plane comes to the screen. From this moment a lot of scenes recorded by amateur video-cameras shows that there was a big hole, similar to the airliner form, in the skyscraper that and flames were coming out from it.

Amateur reporters were mostly in their houses and in fact in these imagines you can also hear the television airing special news about the attack. In a few minutes from the attack the rescues suddenly came and so firefighters from NYFD, ambulances and police too came to Twin Towers. The same scene of the skyscraper is showed by different places of NY also in Times Square for example, some imagines also shows people, that were in North Tower's offices that throw themselves out of the windows because of the temperature that was unbearable on the floors near the attack.

During the second airliner crash to the South Tower the film shows two girls in a room, maybe they were students, one of them was recording and the other one was talking with her mother by the phone. When they saw the second crash they understood that it was a terrorist attack and so they decided to go away. They weren't the only who did it.

All the people was scared and confused, the area near to the Twin Tower was immediately evacuated, bars and shops and also the air zone was forbidden, so reviews' helicopter had to stay far away from towers. There were a lot of people out from their houses just watching up to the two towers hit, New York's frenzy was stuck; not just people inside the towers had to be rescued because also some people watching them fainted and so ambulances was very important. From all the parts of NY you could see an immense black cloud leaving the tower, it was so alarming.

During the documentary the clock always going on and after one hour the area near to the Tower was confusing like the hell and very desert, so strange. At 9:59 the first tower collapsed down, the scenes after this are unbelievable because it seems a scene of the film Apocalypse Now but it's the reality; there were thousand people running in the road just trying to save themselves, some of them was also carrying a case maybe with all what they reached to take from their houses.

The dust was everywhere, there are also imagines recorded inside the last tower, you can see firefighters inside it in that moment whey were not just people, they were heroes. At 10:28 also the second tower collapsed, New York was covered by the dust, it seemed snow but they were big clouds of dust moving from the collapsed towers; it was a scene more realistic in a horror movie than in the reality.

In the last part of the movie there are eyewitness describing what happened that day and they talk about it like the worst moment of their life, they felt alone and so vulnerable, they were confused and scared in particular but all of them understood the importance of the rescues, they risked their life to save a lot of people but a lot of these one also died; about 2700.