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CNN Live Event/Special
9/11 Inside The Film. Aired 9:35-10p ET
Aired September 06, 2026 - 21:35 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[21:35:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
JULES NAUDET, FILM MAKER, 9/11: My first image, when I think about September 11, it's that beautiful, blue sky. It was a beautiful day. Should have been.
GEDEON NAUDET, FILM MAKER, 9/11: Nobody in the world knew that those towers were going to crumble.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh, all right.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
J. NAUDET: But we just happened to be the two guys who had cameras and running or embedded in a fire house with the authorization of the fire department. I think that morning I'm missing, I think, 12 seconds of what I live. Three times I changed tapes. I think we can safely say the last, least documented event in history.
G. NAUDET: On that morning, we were the only one. There were no cell phone. I mean, there was no cameras on cell phone.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You guys brothers? Are you guys brothers?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
J. NAUDET: We had actually moved to New York City in 1989. I was 16 years old. Gedeon was 19. Stayed there ever since. It was love at first sight.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
J. NAUDET: I went to buy myself a pack just for you not to be able to steal mine.
G. NAUDET: Like that every day.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
J. NAUDET: And we meet James (ph) in New York at a party, and he's a firefighter. No one tells better stories than James (ph).
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Comes running around a corner with a bucket of water and goes phish. It hits me right in the face, and I said, "Who the [BEEP] are you?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
G. NAUDET: He's a natural-born storyteller. The life in the firehouse that he would explain this kind of incredible tight family.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I dropped off a couple of Rolex watches, but they're gone already.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
G. NAUDET: That no one seems to be able to break into, especially not with cameras. So he's telling us all those stories, and we're thinking we have to do it for the first few days or weeks, we don't exactly feel welcome by everybody.
J. NAUDET: I remember one day, I think we were talking to our grandmother, telling her how it was going, that it was a little bit problematic, the guys would not really open up, but she said, you know, these big guys they like to eat, so use that, cook at the firehouse and go through their stomachs, I think that will help.
And so I decided to make a special meal, traditional French meal, which is leg of lamb with beans and a mashed potato.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The magic beans.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Holy shit. This is going to be a [BEEP] rumble in the [BEEP] bumble.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
J. NAUDET: What I remember the most very vividly, as if it was yesterday, they're making fun of us. They're joking with us.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh, that's delicious. Too bad we didn't have enough.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
J. NAUDET: And that's the most beautiful moment. We learned there that trust needs to be earned and it's not given, and so you have to put in the time. And in the craziest happenstance, it is September 10, and the next day would change everything.
[21:40:00]
So that morning when I go film that order of gas, that's the first time I film for a project, and so I don't really know what I'm doing. I just started filming, And so, in my head, I'm just OK, so, going to do kind of the cliche shots, the guys, the fire trucks, the World Trade Center, part of our of downtown. And as I'm filming the firefighters, we hear this kind of roar coming over the city.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
Video is shown of a plane crashing into the World Trade Center.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
J. NAUDET: I think my brain kind of shut down, and the delayed sound of the explosion wakes me up in my stupor. I didn't know it was a terrorist attack. I thought it was an accident, like everybody else.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh my God.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
G. NAUDET: While Jules is on Lispenard Street, I'm in the firehouse with Tony. My job is to follow and film Tony. But I pick up the camera and I run to the corner, and what do I see? This huge hole in the middle of the Wall Street Center.
My first emotion was this emotion of guilt. I thought, oh my God. I had wished so much in the weeks prior that we would finally have great fire to capture, and here it is. And but it's too big.
J. NAUDET: Just as Gedeon's job was to follow Tony, mine was to follow the Chief. When we arrived under the awning, One World Trade Center, I didn't want to stay outside. I wanted to continue on filming him.
G. NAUDET: It's not that we felt a duty to -- to film that morning. It's just that we were doing a documentary, and nobody knew that so many people were going to die, that everyone around us was mostly going to die.
J. NAUDET: I think when you're traumatized, it comes back to you in sounds and in flashes.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Stay with me.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
J. NAUDET: That morning was full of these sounds that are etched in my mind. The roar of the engine of the plane, that boom that hits us after we see the plane crash into the north tower, and then inside is the scream of that woman burning alive.
The sound of the fire extinguisher saving her. The sound of the people who were jumping. All the windows had been blown out in the -- in the lobby, so the lobby was a very cavernous place, and so the sound reverberated.
So whenever these people would crash, everyone would jump. These sound are haunting. A firefighter had been killed not too long before the collapse of the South Tower, actually by being hit by someone who had jumped.
G. NAUDET: It felt like all New York was there, just -- just looking up in complete horror. So I just filmed them. They were just expressing what we all felt, what we all thought, and -- and I continued on my way and arrived at the Wall Street Center just in time to again another of those crazy coincidences of that day to film the second plane hitting the South Tower.
J. NAUDET: If you would have put it in the movie, people would be like, "Come on, you're exaggerating. It's you know too big to be true." My camera became almost a shield against the horror, physical and mental. It was a way to concentrate more and more, not on what was happening on the outside, but what was happening just through that small screen.
[21:45:00]
When the South tower collapsed, we hear this loud rumbling coming from somewhere above us that transform into a roar. Everyone stops and runs out, and as we're running, the ground is shaking. The difference between life and death is inches and seconds for all of us and I was lucky.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Everybody all right?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yeah, I'm OK.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
G. NAUDET: It's a sea of people escaping, and there is this cloud that chases them. I'm by myself with a camera. I'm trying to reach Jules. I have no idea where he is. It's only later that we'll understand that it is the South Tower that collapsed.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're going to make this like some kind of triage area. I don't want to leave them outside. I pull them in, open the doors, pull them in.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We need a couple of bodies to give them a hand. Drop the gear for now if we're not heading down, we'll head down together.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
[21:50:00]
G. NAUDET: And those were excruciating minutes, not knowing if Jules was alive, and not being able to -- to get there.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We've got military flights up now. It's going to be OK. It's going to be OK.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
J. NAUDET: It was -- it didn't even cross our minds that a tower can collapse like this. Then the sound of these -- the pace alarms, that strident, repeating, continuous sound pierce your ears. It's normally to try to find firefighters if they're unconscious or in a collapse. You realize it's someone who's down and might not get up and might have died already. And we're meddling around, regrouping with other chiefs to say, OK, what do we do next?
Chief Pfeifer decides, OK, let's go back inside. The tower is still there, it's still burning, there's still people, so we have to go. And I remember making about two-three steps. The ground is shaking like a freight train going towards you at 100 miles an hour in the tunnel, and I jumped in between the two trucks, and I feel someone jump on top of me.
And then suddenly the sound stopped. The person on top of me gets up and -- and -- and says, "Are you OK?" And that's where I realize it's Chief Pfeifer's voice.
Two hours walking around, asking every firefighter I -- I can see if they've seen the guys from the Engine 7/ Ladder 1. They've seen a French guy with a camera. No one answering me. No one even looking at me in the eyes, which was a bad sign. And I arrive at the firehouse, and they say, yeah, yeah, your brother is in the kitchen.
And unbeknownst to me, we have a very good friend who lived not too far from the firehouse, who had rushed to the firehouse, but he takes the camera and records that moment where I fall in Gedeon's arms. Suddenly, nine years old again, and it's funny because what I tell him in French is that he should not worry that I filmed everything and I didn't stop. I was afraid that he would scold me, that I had done a bad job.
G. NAUDET: Yeah, I mean, I'm in shock. I just can't even comprehend what you're telling me because you're telling me you were actually inside and you almost died five times, and I'm thinking, how is it possible? And -- and I'm thinking, I won't have to tell my parents that he's dead.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Building started shaking, guys started running, and all of a sudden they just started splinting the door, and he luckily shot out.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I thought you guys were dead.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You're not the only one. I thought I was dead.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: When we got down to lobby, we saw they abandoned the command post. We knew we were in trouble.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
G. NAUDET: They all survived. All the guys from Engine 1/Ladder 1, on Duane Street survived.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: How do you feel?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You're OK?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yeah, I'm all right. Is everyone from the house? Everyone?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
J. NAUDET: We were whole. We were all there.
G. NAUDET: The most amazing thing happened to a fire house. It's among the very first to arrive at the Wall Street Center, led by Chief Pfeifer, and they are probably among the last one to exit the Wall Street Center minutes, if not seconds, before it goes down, and yet they all survive.
[21:55:00]
J. NAUDET: This was the Miracle House, and I think one guy came to us and said, "Yesterday you -- you had one brother, today you have 55." I think we identified over I think around 75 firefighters, I had filmed that morning that didn't make it.
Once we identified these people, we made a copy of that segment, and then sent a letter to each of the families and said we were filming a documentary. We filmed the images of your husband, your son, your father. Would you like to receive the tape?
I think for a lot of people to have these moments to see their loved ones not in anguish, but doing what they wanted to do, doing what they love to do, which is to save people.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Is it all right if I smile?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
G. NAUDET: In the film, you see the guys being interviewed, and they are extremely candid. It's -- it's raw emotion because you -- you have to -- to understand that all those interviews were done about three to four to five days after September 11.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We have friends, a lot of friends still missing.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
G. NAUDET: Everyone was kind of completely depressed and starting to turn inward. The guys started. to sit down, and something incredible happened. They just let it go. They -- they got it all out. They became our therapy sessions, all of us. I think that's our initial therapy. Was that was to be able to tell our stories.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: How did you make it?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We got -- after that, then we kept going, and we got to about 19 or 20. That's when I felt the shake, shaking like this. Then I felt it sway like this. No bueno. That was -- I didn't know it at the time, but that was Tower 2 going down.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
J. NAUDET: At that time, the idea of firefighters talking about tough stuff they go through, talking to a therapist and all that, you didn't do that at the time. When September 11 happened, you had 11 counsellors at the fire department. You must have over a hundred now.
Every year, when firefighters have their health checkup, now they have a mental health checkup, which is even longer than the physical, and so it has changed quite a lot.
Most of them are -- are getting help, but it's a continuous battle. Every five years, those firefighters and first responders have to make their case. Never forget is also never forget the people that were there and the people who are unfortunately, sick who are dying of these horrible cancers. 25 years later, 911 is still killing firefighters.
G. NAUDET: We should do more to take care of them. They were here when we needed them. We can't -- we can't abandon them.
J. NAUDET: The responsibility of these images became very, very, very important to do the right thing, to show people of New York, show in the U.S. or the world what the true heroes of that day were, the first responders, the people who -- who saved 17,000 people that morning.
After that day, I turned to my fiance and said, "OK, we have to get married." One of the guys came and said -- said, "We'd like you to have the wedding in the firehouse. This place has been a place of sadness. You will give us one day of love, of laughter, of celebration, and we need that."
[22:00:00]
We had a firehouse wedding. We were alive, and we were all together, and this was another day, and it was magical.
