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Untitled 9/11 Day Project
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TYPE: Documentary Feature
GENRE: Documentary
STATUS: Development
LOGLINE
Untitled 9/11 Day Project chronicles the decades-long effort to “take back” September 11 and transform it into 9/11 Day, America’s largest annual day of service.
SYNOPSIS
Untitled 9/11 Day Project chronicles the inspiring work of two friends who helped “take back” 9/11, transforming it into America’s largest day of service. The film weaves together 9/11’s tragic and complicated history with the personal stories of those who now commemorate 9/11 through good deeds and acts of service.
ARTISTIC STATEMENT
In 2008, Siskel/Jacobs Productions produced the History Channel documentary 102 Minutes That Changed America, which reconstructed the morning of 9/11 in real time, using only raw sound and video—no voiceover, no interviews, no static archive. The idea for this radical approach came about in part as a reaction to the increasingly black-and-white, obligatory nature of 9/11 coverage at the time, the sense that something essential about the confusion, complexity, and shock of the day was getting lost. By stripping out the voice-over and expert commentary, we hoped to create a kind of “primary source” documentary – one that people could watch in five years or fifty years and get a visceral sense of what the day felt like in the moment, a necessary step in any attempt to understand the country’s subsequent response.
102 Minutes is immersive, painful, and difficult to watch. But something about the approach struck a chord. It became the most-viewed special in the network’s history to that time, and won a host of awards, including three primetime Emmys. It has since aired in over 150 countries, and been viewed by tens of millions of people around the world. For many, watching it on 9/11 has become an annual ritual – a way for them to honor and commemorate the day. And just as we had hoped, the documentary has also become a tool to introduce younger generations to 9/11, a portal through which to experience the emotions of the day and begin to wrestle with its consequences.
Though it’s entirely different in form, we view Untitled 9/11 Day Project as a companion piece to 102 Minutes, a kind of necessary sequel, driven by the same instinct to cut against the narrative grain. The 25th anniversary of 9/11 will no doubt occasion a new spate of documentaries about the day. Invariably—and understandably—most will look backwards, at the events of that morning, its impact on those directly affected, its geopolitical reverberations, and so on. But by 2026, roughly 40% of Americans (including Greg’s two daughters and Jon’s two sons) will have been born after 9/11; to them, the day means something very different—if it means anything at all—and that meaning will continue to shift and change as the event recedes further into the past. What makes the story of Untitled 9/11 Day Project so compelling to us is that it’s not just a way to look back on what 9/11 was, it’s also a way to explore what it’s becoming. By weaving together the contentious history of 9/11 Day with the stories of those who commemorate it in powerful, productive ways, the film becomes a meditation on tragedy, time, and the shifting nature of historical memory itself, bringing the past and present together as a way to lay a foundation for the future.
KEY CREW
Greg Jacobs - Co-director
Greg Jacobs is an Emmy Award-winning documentary filmmaker and the co-founder, with Jon Siskel, of Siskel/Jacobs Productions, a Chicago-based film and television production company. Over the course of his 27-year career, Greg has directed, written, or overseen the production of more than 200 documentaries, including four feature docs: Louder Than a Bomb, about the world’s largest high school poetry slam, which won 17 festival prizes and had its world premiere on OWN; No Small Matter, about early childhood education, which moved the needle on the issue nationally through an ambitious impact campaign and nearly two thousand screenings across the U.S.; The Road Up, about a Chicago-based job training program, which premiered at the Chicago International Film Festival, winning the Audience Award for Documentary; and the 2024 Hot Docs selection The Here Now Project, which weaves together raw, in-the-moment footage from 2021—no narration, no talking heads—to create an unprecedented visual diary of the countless ways climate change is already affecting ordinary people around the world. Greg also co-Executive Produced the triple Emmy-winning TV documentary 102 Minutes That Changed America, for the History Channel, and the News and Documentary Emmy-winning Witness: Katrina, for the National Geographic Channel. A 2016 New America Fellow, Greg is a graduate of Yale University and the author of Getting Around Brown, a history of school desegregation in his hometown of Columbus, Ohio.
Jon Siskel - Co-director
Jon Siskel is an Emmy Award-winning documentary filmmaker and the co-founder, with Greg Jacobs, of Siskel/Jacobs Productions, a Chicago-based film and television production company. Over the course of his nearly three decades in the field, Jon has written, directed, or produced dozens of projects, including four feature docs: Louder Than a Bomb, about the world’s largest high school poetry slam, which won 17 festival prizes and had its world premiere on OWN; No Small Matter, about early childhood education, which moved the needle on the issue nationally through an ambitious impact campaign and nearly two thousand screenings across the U.S.; The Road Up, about a Chicago-based job training program, which premiered at the Chicago International Film Festival, winning the Audience Award for Documentary; and the 2024 Hot Docs selection The Here Now Project, which weaves together raw, in-the-moment footage from 2021—no narration, no talking heads—to create an unprecedented visual diary of the countless ways climate change is already affecting ordinary people around the world. Jon also co-Executive Produced the triple Emmy-winning TV documentary 102 Minutes That Changed America, for the History Channel, and the News and Documentary Emmy-winning Witness: Katrina, for the National Geographic Channel. Most recently, Jon wrote, directed, and produced the short film Memorial, about the July 4, 2022 mass shooting in his hometown of Highland Park, Illinois, and the spontaneous memorial that emerged in its aftermath. A graduate of Beloit College, Jon is the recipient of a 2023 Meier Achievement Award.
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