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save every single time you purchase. Welcome
to episode 404 of Behind the Shield podcast.
As always, my name is James Gearing, and this
week it is my absolute honor to welcome on the
show the two French brothers behind the 9 -11
documentary, November 13th, and their most recent
one, Notre Dame, Jules and Gédion Naudé. Now,
I have literally been waiting four years to talk
to these two incredible men after being moved
so powerfully by their documentaries and understanding
their passion for the first responder community,
specifically the fire service. So I was humbled.
I was honored to sit down with them and had so
many questions that this conversation went on
for two and a half hours. As you will hear, Jedion
had to actually leave and go and get his children
from school because I kept him so long. But they
witnessed firsthand the tragedy in New York City,
and then they documented the tragedy in Paris,
and then obviously the Notre Dame fire as well,
amongst other documentaries that they've done
on top of that. So I can't recommend strongly
enough to listen to this from beginning to end.
In the midst of what we have been through this
last year, and some of the things that we've
already been exposed to in 2021, This restores
the faith in humanity. You hear the beautiful
stories that came out of some of these horrendous
terrorist attacks. Now, before we get to that
conversation, as I say every single time, please
just take a moment, go to whichever app you listen
to this on, subscribe to the show, leave feedback.
I truly do love reading your feedback. And leave
a rating. Every five -star rating makes this
podcast more visible for others to find it. And
this is a free library for you, planet Earth.
So all I ask in return is that you help share
these incredible men and women's stories so I
can get them to everyone else who needs to hear
them. So with that being said, I introduce to
you Jules and Gédéon Naudet. Enjoy. So, Jules
and Gideon, thank you so much for taking the
time to come on the podcast today. Pleasure to
be here. Thank you for having us. Most welcome.
Thank you. Now, despite the accidents, where
are we actually finding you on planet Earth today?
I'm in Connecticut. I'm in New York City. And
for the record, I wish I could be talking like
Sylvester Stallone. I took classes. you know
growing up in paris france i guess uh yeah it
was too late i was asked the other day if i was
popular with the girls when i was younger because
of the english accent i told her no because everyone
was english so no one cared but now i don't know
if you have the same thing but when you move
to a different country people find your accent
intriguing the the french uh did did go a long
way that's true beautiful all right well i love
to start at the very beginning so Where were
you born? And then tell me about your family
dynamic, what your parents did, and if you had
any other siblings. Michel, do you want to start?
Okay, okay, okay. I don't get much credit being
the first one, of course, because the second
one, Jules got all the brain and the rest. But
yeah, we were born in both in Paris. parents
are Parisian and crazy enough they decided when
we were respectively 18 and 16 years old that
they wanted to change their life and move to
New York City. And at that time, New York was
like in the movies. It was Starkey and Hutch
and everything that you could possibly imagine
when you're growing up watching a series on TV.
And we arrive in New York and... And right away,
we knew we wanted to continue to make documentaries
and films. That was something that we had started
years before. Maybe you can talk about that,
Jules. So I think to go back before, so we were...
family environment. Our father was the editor
-in -chief of a magazine called Photo, which
was all about photojournalism and photography
in general. So we were raised very early on with
these great masters of photojournalism between
Cartier -Bresson and all of the others who were,
you know... Coming for lunch with our parents
and our father in particular and so as little
kids We would listen to these incredible stories
of how to capture a moment with them. It was
with one click with one image But we were struck
by that. And our parents were absolute cinephiles
and we were watching movies every single night.
On Sunday night, where in France, we normally
around midnight, you have classics that air,
whether it is a Kurosawa or a Renoir or whatever
it was, or someone else. And actually, they would
force us to watch it. They thought it was important
for our general culture. And the next day, they
would write us a note that we would give to our
teachers saying, oh, I'm terribly sorry. But
yesterday, you know, the rules of the game. by
Renoir was on TV and we thought it was very important
so of course all the teachers were convinced
we were writing our notes ourselves and we called
our parents and our parents would invite them
to lunch because we were honestly very bad in
school and so they needed to do some kind of
work around that and so they would invite our
teachers to school and said you know but this
is the importance of cinema and what it teaches
you and etc etc so very early on where we were
raised with you know moving images and uh photography
as as examples on how to tell a story for us
it morphed a little bit into uh documentaries
instead of photography and i think we got uh
our Father lent us our first camera when Gédéon
was 12. I was nine. We're still in the same dynamic.
He was kind of the director. I was the actor
at that time. And that's where we started and
continuing into continuing being. interested
in documentary filmmaking in particular. And
I think the first program we made was at Gédéon's
high school, where we did a kind of a profile
of the students and the teachers, which ended
up being banned by the school. But we set up
secret screenings inside the school during the
high school time, where, of course, you would
see all the teachers screaming in vain while
the students are playing dungeon and dragon in
the back of the class or whatever it was but
so that's where we got our first taste for you
know uh kind of the fly on the wall kind of documentary
style that we really like but also to show the
the humanity of things in our you know own uh
immature way at that time and but when we arrived
to the united states and and in new york which
was always the the biggest dream of our parents
who always told us you know one day kids we will
go there And and so being raised with American
cinema and series and all that, you know, when
we arrived, I was 19, I was 16. It was almost
like it felt like coming home. You know, everything
was bigger. Everything was was was wilder, was
more extreme. And we felt right at home because
that the electricity that we would have and would
walk this, you know, just on you walk one block
in New York and you've met you've crossed paths
with people from 20 different countries with
different crazy adventures, probably that happened
to them. And so that energy, you know, the system.
sustained us and fed us very early on. And then
we went to NYU and tried to learn, at least professionally,
how to do documentaries and film in general.
But it was really that awakening moment of coming
to New York and feeling of that electricity that
you can feel and that possibility that there
is no, everything is possible. That, you know,
cliche that, you know, the American dream. uh
is really was a reality for us of course yeah
so it's interesting how you as you mentioned
your observation was immediately how diverse
new york was and i had the same thing even even
in england i grew up in the farm in a very rural
part of england so when i would go to heathrow
airport on ski trips or whatever i'd always have
the same thing like what a beautiful tapestry
the airport was of the world and then london
was the same thing so it's it's then crazy and
obviously as we're recording this there's some
lunacy going on in this country at the moment
um that sometimes people in this country don't
see just how diverse and beautiful their own
country actually is no and we're lucky i think
it's particular for us from a european descent
like this where You know, Europe, we're small
and we're big at the same time. You know, you
can take the car or the train and in two hours
you can be in a different country. And then an
hour, two hours later, another country after
that. So I think it's really, I've always found
it a strength to be able to be in the middle
of all these different cultures. And I think
it's a plus to realize that we're not alone.
And it's an incredible and beautiful and crazy
world out there. And we're enriched by the people
in it. Absolutely. Back to your childhood in
France or in Paris specifically, obviously, we're
going to talk about the Bataclan and that horrendous
day a little bit later. But being younger, I
talk about this a lot. When I grew up in England,
we had the IRA bombing. So we were exposed to
terrorism when I was young. I remember a lot
of the hijackings and plane bombings. Through
your lens, obviously, you had no intention of
documenting terrorist attacks when you were becoming
filmmakers. Were there any... tragedies in France
during your childhood, prior to obviously moving
to the US? Indeed, France and Paris in particular,
where we grew up, experienced the terror, the
horror of terrorism in the 80s. It was the first
bombs attack. And we remember quite well, you
know, sometimes our parents asking us just to
give them a call right coming out from school
to make sure it was safe to go home, walking
back home by ourselves. We remember bombing exploding
near a father's office. and that was yes that
was quite scary it was it was very much an environment
then Yeah, terrorism was something that we all
knew about. It continues after we arrived in
the U .S. You had the big wave in the mid and
early 90s of bombings in the RER, the subway
in Paris, where almost every three days a bomb,
a pipe bomb with nails and all that would explode
in a busy subway train. So France has always...
Just like you, you were born with it. You would
listen to it on the radio and on the news at
night with your parents, most probably. It was
permanent. Terrorism was something we were aware
of. And even though we had not seen it firsthand,
it was never very far away. Yeah. And who was
behind the attacks that you were seeing in Paris?
Was that, again, fundamentalist Islam? Yeah,
I think it was the PLO, the Palestinian Liberation
Front. And I think you had also a wave of Corsican
extremists. So there was a bit of both. But these
were at that time, I would say, were not more
religious based, more politically. It was more
a political struggle. The result is the same.
Terrorism is terrorism and the trauma and the
death is the same. I think it was not on a religious
basis as we've seen later after that. Yeah. All
right. So now you're in New York. So lead me
through your education and then how you found
yourself approaching FDNY. Should you pick up
this one? Yeah, well, it's always been a shameful
tale, basically, because here we are arriving
in New York in the luggages of our parents. And
I'm 19, Jules is 16, and we are incredibly lucky.
that one of us is accepted to teach NYU film
school, the famous one. Still have no idea how
they got us in, but so only one of us is there
and because our parents simply cannot afford
to pay tuition. And so Jules and I have this
crazy idea to pretend that, as I'm officially
registered, to pretend that Jules also is officially
registered. And I'm going to take twice as many
credits and I'm going to give half of the classes
to Jules. I'm going to take the directing classes
and he's going to take the producing classes.
And to this day, it's insane to think that they
never realized what happened. And for four years
Jules got to NYU completely illegally. So I'm
the only one who officially graduated. We will
be forever grateful to NYU and whenever we can
we thank them because it was an amazing school.
It's one of those schools where You don't have
to do so much theory. You can just take the camera
and go out and experiment. And that's the only
way you're really going to learn. And that's
what NYU would let us do. But yeah, that was
the only way to learn. I mean, yeah, we had to
beg and cheat. Beautiful. And this led us to...
As we were finishing NYU, we reconnected with
a friend from Paris who had been at Gédéon's
high school and who had moved to New York and
who had married an amazing guy who was an actor
but was also a firefighter, James Hanlon. And
after numerous French dinners, which would go
very, very late into the night, James would tell
us these incredible tales of life of a New York
City firefighter and especially life in a firehouse,
that kind of amazing, mysterious and fascinating
brotherhood. And so we came up with the ideas
altogether to what if we do. a documentary on
a firehouse and especially on a young firefighter.
And what better way to do it than to use a young
probie, a rookie firefighter in his probation
period, which lasts nine months. And we thought
it was great. We kind of knew it was a very long
shot because I think the last time that cameras
had been allowed by the FDNY in a firehouse was
actually from the BBC in 1975, a documentary
called The Bronx is Burning. came out. Fascinating.
You should appreciate that. But it's really at
the heyday where, you know, you would when they
would you would look at a baseball game at Yankee
Stadium, they would pan in the back and you had
plume of smoke and like five different parts
of the Bronx were burning. So and so since 1975,
no one had been allowed to film in the firehouse.
And so coming to the fire department. with James,
who was a firefighter, with, I think, our thesis
film at NYU, which was about amateur boxer in
Spanish Harlem, which is a very human and very,
you know, good way to look at things. I think
they appreciated that and they decided to give
us a chance. We knew the parameter was we wanted
to follow every single time that the probie would
be, whether he was doing a 24 -hour shift or
a 12 -hour shift, would be there. And so the
idea was, well, we're going to follow for nine
months and we'll see what happens. The problem
is that no one was interested in that. We had
sent letters to every broadcaster in the U .S.
and France, and everyone kept telling us. Oh,
it's very nice. But honestly, you know, firefighters
don't really interest anyone. And so, as usual,
you know, the beg, steal and borrow. We didn't
steal, but we borrowed from friends and best
friends. And we took day jobs to be able to pay
for the tapes. I was a Xerox copy person, which,
of course, now sounds antiquated. But, you know,
I was in a production company just making Xeroxes.
And Gideon, what were you doing for that? I was
a buzz boy and a very bad one at it. So the idea
was to find ways. And once we had at least the
budget, which was not much to buy the cameras
and buy the tapes at that time, we worked with
the fire department to try to kind of do a casting
in a way, select the probing. So for this, we
went to the... the fire academy the rock and
uh talk to the new class and introduce ourselves
and said this is who we are this is what we've
done and this is what we'd like the project we
would like to do and so out of i don't know a
class of 200 there was about 50 that were interested
in at least talking to us we you see in the documentary
the kind of the interviews we do at first And
as soon as we met Tony Benetatos, it literally,
as we said, he was the one. You know, he had
that naivete and that enthusiasm of youth. And
especially he had no link to the fire department,
contrary to a lot of others who were sons, grandsons,
cousins or nephews of a firefighter themselves.
Here was a blank slate. And what better way for
the audience to identify with them? Because as
Tony would come to the to the firehouse and discover
this world, through his eyes, the audience will
have the same way, discovering everything, being
a virgin to that world. And so we got the okay.
He agreed to participate. He finished the training
of the rock and was assigned on, I think, July
2nd or something like that, June 3rd, I think,
to come to the firehouse. Beautiful. And just
prior to that, it just occurred to me, had you
had any exposure with the Sapo Pompier in Paris
itself? No. No, no, never. Well, just I guess
like every young boy, you know, fascination with
the big rig trucks and the French one in particular,
who looks like they're coming out from a Star
Wars movie when they put their C -3PO helmet
down. And, you know, it was always kind of. The
normal fascination, but actually, you know, never
been to a fire, never met any of them socially
or any other way. So that was a dream come true.
All this was kind of a lifelong little boy's
dream coming true. Beautiful. Well, I know he
refers to himself. I think you talk about him
as black clouds and white clouds. And he was
definitely a white cloud. It's funny because
outside FDNY, a lot of people revere. the city
and i think it's based more on the war years
that you know every station is just burning you
know every shift and the reality is most of the
the busy departments even more inner city we
don't get as much fire in you know 2021 as as
those guys did in the 70s and 80s so kind of
walk me through your experts expectation of what
these shifts are going to look like and what
his first few weeks actually look like so um
So we start, of course, you know, in our imagination,
we'll be going to a fire every day. It's going
to be amazing. Babies will be saved and all that.
But the reality is... actually what was complicated
is as you can imagine two little frogs as they
would call us coming with cameras in a place
where normally what stays in the firehouse you
know what happens in the firehouse stays in the
firehouse and here you have two strange french
creatures with incredible accents who were filming
them every move. So their first go to, even though,
you know, the captain of the engine had agreed
and the captain of the engine in a house where
you have the engine and the truck, the captain
of the engine is the captain of the house. And
so they had agreed, but... As soon as we came
in, every time we would film them, they would
come up with the most incredible curse words
I had ever seen and still to this day ever heard.
And so, of course, we couldn't use anything at
all. And so whenever we would be there, they
would do that. So we decided, OK, it's going
to be a little bit more complicated than we thought.
And also by the fact that whenever Tony would
work, there was no job whatsoever. It was just,
you know, as you said, it was a fantastic cooking
show, which is in itself is something else, which
is actually, I think, is the way we kind of got
to there to to to for them to trust us with.
James had told us very early on. don't worry
they're going to you know make fun of you mercifully
until you know they accept you and you will see
the change almost overnight there is the moment
where you know they start from making fun of
you to you know actually from not talking to
you to making fun of you making fun of you that's
a good that's a good uh that's a good sign and
the more they really ride right the more you're
accepted and so we kind of knew of that but i
remembered when they would um Not really talk
to us or that to look at us was a kind of a strange
look. I remember that our grandmother told us,
you know, if you want to for certain people,
if you want to get to them, go through their
stomach. So I started cooking quite a lot. And
we did lasagnas. We did French fries that didn't
come out from a bag and frozen. And, you know,
all of these things. And I think that really
was one of the big parts that they said, oh,
they're maybe not that bad. You know, they cook
OK. So so that was the start of at least of it.
Yeah, well, it's funny because there's that one
scene where you make lamb. And I'm sure to, again,
European eyes, you're like, this is going to
be enough. American portions are very different.
So what was that day like for you? It's strange
enough for me. It was the best day of that entire
project. cooking this amazing meal, which I was
very proud. And it was, you know, it was a leg
of lamb, flageolet beans, and mashed potatoes.
You cannot go more French than this with the
little sauce that goes with it and all that.
Except that like a moron, you know, yes, I forgot
to realize that instead of doing one leg of lamb,
you know, I should have had at least 12 of them.
You know, so we cook and we set the meal and
everyone is in a fantastic mood and everyone
is really making fun of us and everyone is laughing
and you can feel that fantastic energy. And I
remember the moment, you know, being in the kind
of in the doorway, looking at everyone and everyone
is having a great time. And you know, and James,
you know, telling stories and all that. And you
see and I remember reflecting, this is the moment.
Finally, we're accepted. This is amazing. And,
you know. the craziness and reality being stranger
than fiction, it is the night of September 10.
And that we would not know that the next day
everything would change. But that night was a
fantastic night. Even though then later on during
the night we had like five false alarms and we
barely slept. And since we were still, you know,
completely terrorized of missing a fire, we would
sleep. completely dressed, shoes on, cameras
on the shoulder, like this, on the couch, ready
to pounce at any movement and terrorize that
we would miss it or we'd be in the bathroom when
the bell runs out. You know, the normal firefighter's
probie kind of worries. And then the next day
was completely different. Absolutely. Well, and
that's what's so heartbreaking. I think with
9 -11, with November 13th, even with the Notre
Dame documentary, especially with those two where
lives were lost, is you take a moment to paint
the picture of what the morning was like. And
so obviously, we'll talk about in a second, the
calls that they ran right before it happened.
And then in November 13th, the people setting
up for the day in the cafes. And so let's talk
about that. So kind of... What was the morning
like prior to, you know, when the world changed,
as it were? Changed a day only one. Well, it's
a regular morning. I mean, right away we wake
up and we know that around seven, eight o 'clock
in the morning, there's going to be a shift.
And so Tony Beletatos will just go home. But
right away, we call her parents, like we often
do, and they live in Paris. And we tell them,
look, it was another night with no fire, but
we really believe we're connecting with the guys.
They're finally accepting us, and they're very
happy for us. And we hang up with our parents,
and we say, well, I'll speak to you later. Have
a great day. And right when we hang up, I think
the alarm ring. And it's an order of gas on VZ
and Church, something like that. Jules, if I'm
not mistaken. Lispenard. Lispenard. And so Jules,
who has a camera that follows the chief, the
chief car. And at that time, it's Chief Pfeiffer,
Battalion Chief. Joseph Pfeiffer, who's on duty.
So Jules jumps with the chief in his car, and
the truck follows. And I'm with the second camera,
and my job is to follow the rookie, Tony, at
all times. Except that Tony had just barely been
relieved. And so he is relieved. The other rookie
who gets... on the engine and follows the chief
and Jules and the truck. I stay in the firehouse
with Tony and basically minutes pass and... And
I guess you should tell the story because this
is... This is unbeknownst to me. When I take
the call and I go in the chief's car, you have
to understand we had set up our responsibilities.
Gédéon, which is the oldest and the accomplished
cameraman, was the one filming Tony at all times.
And so me being kind of the newbie and filming
for the first time, we had thought, but it would
be an interesting point of view to have the chief
also, the battalion chief. So we have two...
different insights into the job, the men who
go inside the fire and the strategy part of the
chief itself. And so, you know, I've been doing
that all summer. Most of the chiefs know me pretty
well. Chief Pfeiffer, we've seen each other.
He's kind of used to the old French guy in the
back of his SUV with a camera. So it's nothing,
you know. And so when I arrive at Les Bernard
and Church, Honestly, it's a pretty normal day.
It's gorgeous. I remember it's a blue sky. I
think I'm thinking about, you know, going voting
later on because it was the mayoral election
of New York at that time, right on that day.
So I I arrive and just film and I'm sure she
was there. But, you know, at the fire scene,
there's a lot of people. There's a lot of them.
So I don't see him. But for me, you know, with
Tony somewhere, I don't I concentrate on what
I'm supposed to do. And since I'm, you know,
I'm new at this, I always kind of do the cliche.
I'm going to film kind of the landmark that is
right in front of me so I can kind of get a good
point of to find myself. So it's always. the
World Trade Center is there. So I always kind
of do the pans from the World Trade Center, moving
back to the guys. You know, I'm thinking in my
head how I'm not going to mess this up and no
one's going to scream at me if I don't take the
message. So, you know, it's still the little
brother, older brother kind of thing. So, you
know, just practicing, filming. I see Chief Pfeiffer,
who sees that there is a slight odor of gas,
but, you know, Con Edison, which is the gas company's
call, standard procedures, there's nothing, you
know, we don't smell a lot of gas, so we're not...
concerned at all. But we stay around, as is what
you're supposed to do until the kind of lesson
arrives. And as we're milling around and I'm
filming Chief Pfeiffer, I. carry a very small
camera. It's about like this. I carry it normally
at my hip so I can look around and see what's
happening. And I look on the little LCD screen
to kind of see what is in frame. And as I'm filming
the chief, I remember we hear this kind of loud
roar, like getting a bit louder. You know, we're
used to planes in New York City, but this one
was different. So I remember looking up and seeing
in between two buildings, behind two buildings,
a plane that goes in the back of it. pretty large
it's pretty fast it's pretty low i can read american
online um american airline on the on the back
of it and then you know it kind of disappears
behind a building and i'm saying okay reflex
my camera is already on so i you know turn to
follow its trajectory it's what what's going
to happen and it is it reappears behind the building
it crashes into one world trade it's the moment
where uh which is But time completely kind of
dilates. It's, you know, seconds seem to take
minutes. And it's very strange. I think you have
such a sensory overload that being able to process
that kind of slows down everything. So between
what I'm seeing and what I'm thinking, I cannot
make sense of the two together. And I'm brought
back kind of to reality by the sound. There is
a delay in the explosion, which I hear and see
the... The firefighters all around kind of being
removed from that microsecond of shock. And then
everyone jumps into their trucks and the chief
jumps into his car. I follow him immediately.
And then we dash to the World Trade Center where
we're there in about a minute and a half flat
since it's early on. It's 846. There's not much
people that time. But we're cruising. And what
I don't... I remember at that time, even though
I'm filming continuously, is the chief actually
says, and I will find that later when I rewatch
the tape, Chief Pfeiffer saying, you know, it
looked like a direct attack. One was the World
Trade Center was hit and then gives where they
should meet. The first one inside one World Trade
Center and the other one as a secondary staging
post a little bit further. But, you know, it's
hard to really think concrete. I'm just concentrating
on what I'm seeing, trying to film the chief
and his driver, and all that. But it's kind of
chaos in my mind at that point. So you want to
jump back and forth? We can do back and forth
between Gédéon's perspective and mine, maybe.
Please, please. Okay. So I'm in the firehouse.
It's a completely empty firehouse with just Tony,
the probie firefighter. And he's about to leave
to go home when suddenly there's a large frantic
knock at the firehouse front door. And he opened
the door and there is this guy who says, you
guys have to come. There is an explosion. There
is a plane that hit the wall at center. Come
right away. And it makes no sense. Tony looks
at me. I look at Tony. The firehouse is completely
empty. I just pick up the camera and I go around
the corner on Church Street. And I see a gigantic
hole in One World Trade Center with smoke coming
out of it. And it's this moment where suddenly
I feel terribly guilty for the entire summer.
I wished that something would go on, that we
would see a fire. And suddenly, here it is, a
plane. I just crashed into the World Trade Center.
This is just too big. And, you know, it's a stupid
reaction. Why should I feel guilty? I didn't
make it happen, but I did. I'm thinking, damn,
where is Jules? And he must be with everyone.
And he must be heading toward the World Trade
Center. So I go back. I tell Tony that there
is indeed a gigantic hole in the World Trade
Center. And I pick up all the equipment and I
start walking down to Church Street, to the World
Trade Center. Same with Jules, you know, it's
very hard to comprehend filming the reaction
of the people. It's like the entire planet was
there looking up. And quickly, just arriving
down the World Trade Center, this gigantic boom,
explosion, and it was the second plane. just
hitting the the south tower um and and yeah that
that's that's those twilight zone moment where
you it's just too much uh you this is no accident
anymore but you have no idea what to do uh the
only thing i knew was jules was at the world
trade center Those two towers were burning and
now cops were telling everybody to evacuate.
So I just walked back to the firehouse. I think
the crazy part... where it becomes you know it
kind of goes on the of the rail which is already
when we see the first plane i remember for me
was a series of just getting things from from
from from bad to worse you know arriving at the
uh finally at the world trade center by parking
right under the awning of one world trade the
north tower and seeing the chief uh gets out
to start to put his bunker gear and of course
i asked him you know can i come in with you and
he tells me yes you know please don't um don't
leave my site and i think in him we talked to
after about it he didn't want me to start uh
being around he didn't want me if he if he he
thought that if he told me not to to go in i
would be around it and he knew it was dangerous
and so we went in and i think what as soon as
we go in I see these two people who are burning
alive. And it made me almost remember these pictures
that we had seen when we were young people. The
Vietnam, the war photographers were taken in
the Vietnam War with, you know, a little girl
burning and all that. All these images came back
flooding into me because here, you know, having...
My brother and I have lived very sheltered life
up to that point. You know, I think the death,
the closest we had seen was a relative in a suit,
you know, in a coffin that you pay your respects
to. But here, the immediacy and the horror of
it and the sight, the sound, the smell, everything
was so horrible that I think that gauge, at least
in my part, and I think Gideon did the same.
I censored myself from that moment on, which
was a defense mechanism. I don't think there's
anything noble about what I wanted to do and
all that. I think I was at first trying to protect
myself from the horror of the image that is still
seared into my brain until today, that no one
should see this, that there is a certain respect
of... uh in life but in death also and so from
that moment on uh i would not actually also uh
separately had made that same decision filming
the dead or the or the wooden in a way that was
gratuitous we didn't want that and so as i come
in the the the world trade center First, I see
that all the windows outside have been blown
out. It looks very strange. You have that smell
of kerosene downstairs. You don't know what happened.
We would learn later on that it was the jet fuel
that went down a broken elevator shaft that created
that fireball in the lobby. And that burned these
people right there that I was seeing. As I'm
going to the left, following the chief still,
we hear one of our guys from, I think, the truck,
Jamal, who actually used the extinguisher and
puts down the person. And that person is then
taken outside. I think that person lived, actually.
And then I follow the chief and we go to the
fire control area, which is right to the left
when you come in. And then, you know, firefighters
start streaming in. It's a nonstop. sirens, guys
coming in, checking in, going up. And here I
don't feel worried in a way. I feel, you know,
I'm surrounded by these amazing, you know, kind
of superhero who don't wear maybe uniforms or
capes, but, you know, their bunker gear, for
me, it's a giant S in a way. It's kind of a Superman.
And also I feel that, you know, I've seen that
the fire is very high above me, so I don't...
feel concerned i there's not a million year that
in my i have any thought that these towers can
ever come down i think that's not something you
even realize can happen and as um i'm filming
around filming the uh everyone we hear a loud
explosion and i remember looking up and filming
and we see flaming debris uh falling on the other
side of the courtyard. And someone comes in and
said, another plane has just hit the other tower.
And that's where, for me, I realized that it's
not an accident. Up to that point, I was sure
it was an accident, or at least I didn't question
what was happening. And here it seems to be,
you know, we're under attack and that seems to
be what is happening. And everything changes
again. You know, the stress level comes in because
it's now you're hunted in a way. You feel like
a target. and and and so the stress for me I
keep it inside but I think it manifests as being
frantically filming and as a way you know our
brain protects us in the most strangest way so
for me it was making sure I keep filming because
it gave me something to do made sure I had to
clean the lens so I would them you know, the
image will be good. And once again, you know,
my brother will not be disappointed with me and
will be proud of the work I do. And so it was
always trying to, it was almost like, I don't
know, something I would repeat almost like a
Zen kind of thing. You know, I would count when
I would film people to make sure I would keep
them in frame for about five to 10 seconds. So
I would count out loud or in my head. And so
it was a way to kind of calm my nerves and give
me something to do. Seeing everything happening
through that little LCD screen in a way was a
way to looking at it through a window. And then,
unfortunately, started the loud bangs and explosion
that we would hear that we would very soon realize
it was actually people who were jumping from
the higher floors. And that was one of the hardest
part, you know, because it's absolutely surreal.
You don't see it. But you hear it, and the sound
represents the death of a person. And intellectually,
to realize that every time you hear that, and
I would hear it over 20 times, if not more, you
know what that sound represents, and with that
sound is a life, and what a life represents.
And it's kind of traumatic to try to understand
that. But then, Jadid, if you want to pick up
on your end. So, meanwhile, I walk my way back
to the firehouse, and it's still empty. It's
only the probie, Tony, there, manning the firehouse
by himself. And there is this monitor, and he's
watching TV, and he's completely helpless. like
i am there is nothing you can do we uh except
uh except soon um uh one then two then three
firefighters uh arrive uh directly from their
home the lucky one who managed to cross the bridge
or the tunnel uh fast enough um uh to uh to arrive
at the firehouse and um And I'm thinking there
is no way I'm going to walk back by myself to
the World Trade Center. I'm not a firefighter
and I'm going to be pushed away again by cops
and FBI agents who are now all around. And so
I waited until... Steve Rogers arrived, the veteran
firefighter in the house, who right away said,
I'm going to pick up my, I'm going to go there
on my pickup truck. And he assembled three of
his guys. And I said, can I come? uh i i need
to find out what's going on and jules is over
there and uh i cannot stay here by myself doing
nothing and he said yes and i was so grateful
that he said yes and um so i jumped with him
and then and three other guys and he he drive
his pickup truck like a madman down church street
uh we arrived we parked kind of a block or two
from the world trade center uh The vision of
downtown... It's collapsed already. The South
Tower is collapsed. Yes, so sorry, so sorry.
While we are at the firehouse, the South Tower,
the second one to be hit, collapsed. It happened
at the same time that I lose Tony Benenatos,
the probie, who basically... rush outside with
an old retired fire chief, Chief Burns, an incredible
character who also managed to come home, even
though he was a retired chief. He just saw Tony
in the firehouse. He just picked up some gear
and he said, Tony, let's go. Let's go help people.
And that was insane to see, except that I lost
them in the crowd, so I came back. Anyway, so
here I am in the pickup truck with Steve, the
veteran of the house, three other guys, and driving
like a madman. And the street is completely white.
People are white. Everybody is covered by this
dust. We start to walk. toward the North Tower,
the only one left standing. And when we arrive
on Visey Street, the street adjacent to the tower,
I take a bit more time. I don't walk as fast
as they do. I don't know. There's something just
at that point so terrifying that I don't know
why, but my legs are not really walking me anymore.
And I'm kind of do... stand up, just stupidly
filming. And that's when this gigantic war happened.
And it was like in those catastrophe movie, you
know, you just look up and you see in slow motion
the top of this skyscraper falling on you. And
the next thing I know, I'm running a few feet
away to an empty fire engine. And I go up. I
open the door and I crawl myself. I hear someone
behind me getting in just a few seconds after
me. And that's it. I'm just waiting to die because
the debris I can hear and feel are falling. all
around the the fire engine some are falling on
it i i can i can hear the the windows exploding
and i'm just waiting for the moment of the big
one crashing us and uh remembering uh you know
as seconds as drew said second would would feel
like minutes uh feeling quite um angry pissed
off that uh i was not dead already you know the
the waiting for for your death was so annoying
so so So horrible. So you just wanted it to be
over. Anyways, your turn, I guess. Yeah. James,
is that what you're interested in? I don't know
if you want us to skip. No, no, no. As long as
you have time, I've set aside as much time as
it takes to tell your story today. So please
take your time. I'm honored that I'm sitting
here listening to this. So thank you. No problem.
So to go back a little bit. After the second
plane has hit, you know, it's a chaotic time
in the lobby. There's more and more people coming,
more and more people going up, including Chief
Pfeiffer's brother, Kevin, from Engine 33, a
lieutenant who goes to see his brother and his
brother gives him the assignment to go up. And
unfortunately, it will be the last time they
will see each other because Chief Pfeiffer's
brother would die in the North Tower. As people
are coming in, I see the preacher of the firehouse.
fire chaplain, sorry, the chaplain, father judge,
which I had seen before at other events and things
like that. But here, normally, you know, he's
always kind of a blusterous guy, always a smile
on his face, always a quick word, a quick, quick
smile. And here it's absolutely the opposite.
He has an incredibly serious demeanor. He looks
like he's mumbling. Some people would say he
was. praying and, you know, not making eye contact
with people. And it was very striking. I remember
filming him because he was, you know, he's really
a beloved figure in the fire department and was
always there for people. And I see a lot of people
and what strikes me is really the look on their
faces. It's not fear because they're not afraid,
but the level of concern, the level of realization
of... the the the how big is the job how dangerous
it's going to be the realization of the loss
of life that has already taken place that will
continue to take place and the most probable
uh injuries to firefighters as they're going
up 80 floors of uh 80 floors uh using the stairs
with 50 pounds on the minimum on their on their
shoulders you can feel that that that that determination
and i'm always You know, we're giant groupies
of firefighters, all first responders, firefighters
in particular. And to see that determination,
that courage, that... you know, what for us makes
them kind of the best of all of us is this determination
to regardless of danger to themselves, they will
be there and they will jump into a building on
fire willingly, eagerly to be able to save people's
lives. And here I could see it firsthand. Even
though they knew it was going to be bad, they
knew that some of them or themselves would lose
their lives. There was no hesitation. On the
contrary, the frustration was that they couldn't
get up there fast enough. And as things are trying
to... quite done in a way even though we're getting
you know you at that point you have uh rumors
that you know uh everything has been hit that
the sears tower that chicago that los angeles
that pretty much everything you know world war
three has just started because you don't know
anything you're in the middle of the the eye
of the storm you're cut off from everything i
think people in watching it on television anywhere
else in the world knew much more than we did
and so when um Things have quiet down in the
lobby. Most firefighters have gone up. The chief
are mingling around, trying to find their strategy.
And I remember I'm filming Chief Pfeiffer. He's
the first chief on site, and so pretty consequent.
And as I'm filming him... We hear a very loud
roar once again coming from above us. And I remember
all of us are looking up and suddenly everyone
scatters. And so I follow them and I see that
they run into a little entrance that would lead
to another, I think, five world trade. And it's
because that sound is almost like the sound of
death. You know, it's kind of that freight train
of death coming towards you. You know it's coming.
You have no idea what's happening, but you know
this is bad. And so as I follow everyone, we
start going up an escalator. I remember just
stopping and saying, OK, what am I running? You
know, I don't know what this is, but this is
death and I'm going to die. And unfortunately,
it's the sad reality of it. And I remember being
surprised as the kind of the. zen like um uh
a calm that i had in my mind uh again time is
completely distended i have the impression this
lasts for half an hour even though it's only
a few a few seconds but i remember that long
conversation in my head of okay i'm about to
die i'm kind of pissed off at that and sad because
you know i have so many people i i love that
uh i'll be missing and all that but in my mind
it's almost like that's you know that um I know
a door opens and kind of, OK, I'm going to walk
through that and we'll see what happens after.
I remember having a prayer saying, you know,
now is the time. I'm not a believer. So I think,
you know, I could use a sign, you know, edging
my bets, I guess. And, you know, no, no atheist
in a foxhole, as they say. Yes, it happens. But
you. And as that roar is coming and the darkness
engulfs us and that dust or fog, I don't know
what it is, is covering us. It's really kind
of, you know, we're suddenly crossing into the
underworld, the abyss, the dentist's inferno.
It's what it looks like. And then that incredible
quietness. Almost like during the first heavy
snow in a city where all the sounds of the streets
disappear. It's exactly that. Everything is muffled.
And then a sound suddenly comes in and you hear
a little sound. You see someone saying, is everybody
okay? And of course I'm the first one to pipe
up because I'm afraid they're going to leave
me behind. I say, I'm okay! Kind of desperately
crying in a way. And, you know, I turn on the
big floodlight I have on my camera, which ends
up being good because the chiefs normally don't
have a lot of equipment on them, but they're
downstairs. And so someone sees the light and
says, you with the light, come downstairs, come
help us. And what I would discover is that they
had just found the body of Father Judge and they
were trying to see if he had a pulse. And unfortunately...
He had died, probably being hit by a piece of
debris that broke his neck. And so I think he
died very quickly there. But unfortunately, there
was nothing we could do. And so very quickly,
we have no idea what's happening. We have no
idea. The South Tower has collapsed. As far as
we're concerned, it's probably a partial collapse
in the North Tower. And that's why... chief pfeiffer
immediately doesn't hesitate doesn't uh in about
uh five seconds after that um that huge explosion
or roar or whatever it was says okay uh Battalion
1 to all units in Tower 1, evacuate the building
and make sure it's repeated, make sure it's understood.
And once he's repeated it about two or three
times and make sure it's been repeated, then
he says, OK, we need to get out of here. It's
dangerous. Some of the chiefs start to carry
the body of our father judge. And we go up that
escalator that would lead to the right to the
West Street right there. We still see debris
is falling. People are still jumping and it's
still very dangerous. So Chief Pfeiffer says,
OK, we're going to go to use the footbridge that
links the World Trade Center to the financial
center and we'll be safer because we'll be protected
from whatever falls. And the other chief says,
OK, we'll stay here. We'll wait for you to make
sure it's safe. So here comes that kind of very
frustrating moment where we. We do go back and
forth where now I watch it. I want to scream
at the television knowing that there is a hidden
clock, you know, that is that is running there.
And as I go there with the chief, with his chauffeur,
Ed Fahey and someone else, you know, we arrive
on the other side. It seems to be OK. And we
try to radio the guys back and say, OK, it's
safe. Come there. We know no news, no nothing.
We go back over there once again and again and
frustrating. But, you know, we don't know anything
at that point. They're not here. We go back again,
go down. And here we come out on the other side
of the World Trade Center to a scene which is
completely, as Gédéon said, is completely different.
It's like kind of a nuclear winter. You have
ash on the floor. You have pieces of debris,
papers everywhere. And even though I film what
looks like the pieces and debris of the South
Tower, in my head, I refuse to recognize that.
We've had no information that said the towers
come down. All they were on the radios are May
Day, May Day, May Day. That's it. And when I
look at it, again, I'm lying to myself saying,
oh, no, the second tower is probably here. It's
behind the smoke or from where I am, I cannot
see it. That's fine. And then the chief goes
back to the secondary position he had given at
the beginning and to regroup with the chief.
We're in the shadow of one World Trade. I'm still
cleaning my camera. I'm still doing things and
kind of disoriented, not knowing what's happening,
but still following the chief. And as the chief
is called by other firefighters there, we're
about to go back into World Trade Center. There's
more people up there, more people we need to
save. And as we do, I think, about two or three
paces, we hear that roar again. Except this time
I can look up and I see that kind of mushroom
of the tower falling on us. Once again, I think
first reflex, running like crazy. I think I broke
an Olympic record how fast I was running. But
I realized that I was trying to run a 120 -story
building in the middle of the street. It was
stupid. As I'm running, I see two trucks there.
And I remember a conversation we had over the
summer with the firefighter that said, you know,
sometime when you have collapses. pockets will
be created and you have to look for certain things
you know that could maybe sustain a pocket when
you have a collapse so it's crazy the kind of
things you remember in the heat of moment and
so i see these two trucks and i said well that
seems like a good idea so i put myself on the
floor my camera is on the side it's still running
our lights is still on because i forgot about
it and that's where you see these images of that
giant cloud that comes and then it's sucked back
in and the papers And in the middle of all that,
I hear someone who jumps on top of me. And as
debris is falling all around and I hear the debris
hit, I feel it a little bit, the person on top
of me being hit also. And once again. Here, I'm
absolutely not zen. I'll have to admit, I'm exactly
like my brother. I'm pissed off. Like, okay,
what the hell happened? I survived. I'm supposed
to have survived. I cannot have another one now.
First one, I'm okay. You know, I could deal with
it. This is unfair. I'm out of the building.
How is this happening to me? Well, you asked
for a sign, so. Yeah, that was, yeah, that was
charming in my plea to hire you after that. But,
you know, but here I am. And again, the strange
thing is, Sound completely disappears again after
that. In that moment, which again, my head is
probably seven minutes long, even though it's,
you know, 12 seconds or something. It's, you
know, it's very, no sound or nothing. The person
on top of me gets up and I hear a voice and okay,
get up. And I recognize it's Chief Pfeiffer.
We get up because the question he had seen me.
I'm in a T -shirt and a pair of jeans. He needs
a bunker gear. And he sees it. He said, OK, what
is that moron doing in the middle of the street?
And, you know, it looks like beachwear. So come
on. So he decided to because he felt that I was
his probie in a way. And we have a very strong
link, Chief Pfeiffer and I, which we still see
to this day each other very often. We spoke every
week. You know, he's the man who saved my life.
But I remember going when he gets up. We don't
see anything. There was clouds everywhere. We
hear gunshots, which was very frightening because
here we hear pops all over the place. And it's
like, oh, OK, that's it. Now they're in terrorist
or whatever it is are in the streets with AK
-47s. It's the end of the world where we'll be
shot like rabbits. And what we would discover
after it was actually a munition inside of a
police truck that had caught fire. And so the
munition was popping all over the place. And
so. But when you don't know that, then, you know,
it's kind of. And so after that, I found a little
deli right off where I go with Chief Pfeiffer.
And I'm no longer in any, you know, shape to
to film anything. I give a call, I think, to
my fiance and tell her that we're OK, that I
don't know where Gideon is, but I'm sure he'll
be fine. And, you know, I'm a little shook up.
We're OK. And after that, I think I filmed sporadically,
but I'm in no way shape able to do that. All
I do is look for Gideon, which. funnily enough,
or strangely enough, was actually probably 50
feet away from me when the second tower collapsed,
except we went in different directions, and fortunately
both survived. Yeah. So I've just jumped into
this fire engine when hearing the tower collapsing
right on top of me, and I heard and I saw, someone
else, a guy jumping into the engine truck right
behind me. And I guess we just waited for a moment
to come, for a big piece of the tower to crash
us. And this moment, crazy enough, never happened.
Unfortunately, some people who had found refuge
behind the truck, the engine where we were in
the back didn't got so lucky because a big piece
fell on them but we we got okay uh and i would
later discovered that the guy who jumped behind
me was an fbi special agent who had previously
already saved 20 people from one world trade
center and five world trade center I mean, the
guy had been already risking his life saving
20 people, burned and injured, found himself
outside when the second tower collapsed. So this
guy, me, with a camera, jumping into an engine
truck and just decided to follow me. And so the
noise stopped. The tower... has collapsed. We're
still alive. And this guy, I don't know who he
is, I will later discover again that he's a special
agent, an FBI, tells me, all right, let's get
out. And we get out, except we don't get out
on the sidewalk. It's not the sidewalk anymore.
It's trucks, I mean, it's cars on fire. There
is nothing flat on which you walk. It's just
pieces of stones and whatever pieces of the building
so it's um and uh and as jules i have a light
on my camera and we managed to make a few steps
and and suddenly i hear these guys screaming
at me saying come back come back you have the
light uh i found someone help me and i turned
i turned the light to the camera i did not realize
it was not with me anymore and this guy again
saved someone else on those few steps that we
that when we got out of the engine he had found
someone else that he was carrying by himself
except this guy that he found that was hurt was
quite heavy and he definitely needed help so
So, of course, we each had one arm of this hurt
guy, you know, with us. And with the light of
the camera, we were able to navigate. And it
took us a block or two to find help. And I just
then just walked back to the firehouse. And each
step to the firehouse was this kind of shock.
this question, you know, like, like, like, like,
you know, where is Jules? How could he possibly
survive that? Where are the guys of the firehouse?
What's going on? And, and unfortunately, I arrived
at the firehouse and the firehouse is almost
empty. And there is suddenly no word from Jules.
In fact, guys from uh guys would arrive almost
one by one like driplet of water here and there
and i would ask them if they had seen jules i
mean he was with them uh they must have seen
him and uh and they were not you know uh they
said no no sorry uh no no no jules we don't know
where he is and uh anyway it took uh it took
uh almost uh almost over two hours for jules
to uh to to come back and that was, yeah, that
was the best reunion. Yeah, because what happened
is that after I stopped filming, I would kind
of go back and forth to all the streets I could
find and ask every firefighter, you know, have
you seen the guys from Engine 7 and Ladder 1?
And, you know, a little French guy with a camera.
And what was infuriating is that none of them
would meet my eyes. And so I thought that was
a bad sign. None of them would sustain looking
into my eyes and said, no, no, sorry. And, you
know, so I had a bad feeling that this was going
to be that I unfortunately knew the answer, that
they were all dead. And so I dragged my feet.
It took me a long time. It took me two hours
to come back to the to the firehouse. On the
way, I found guys from the engine. I was asking,
but did you see Gideon? He said, no, no, he was
not with us. I didn't see him. And we finally
arrived back at the firehouse. And you have this
scene that is in the film because what you have
to understand is that one of our best friends
was working not too far. And as soon as this
happened, knew we were there, came to see us,
Dory, and was with Gideon in the kitchen. And
when I arrived, I put my camera down. And he
picks it up and he films the moment where we
see each other and we fall into each other's
arms. And I think, you know, yes, we're probably
28 and 31 at that time. But when I see these
images, we're six and nine years old, I think.
And I think there is that moment. Still, I remember
when I listened to it in French, I said, you
know, I filmed everything. Don't worry. And I
have all the tapes again. It's you go through
crazy things when, you know, you're you're you're
you're you're in a traumatic experience, I think.
But what was amazing and was what we had survived
and that was unbelievable. But the entire firehouse,
one by one, all these firefighters, all these
friends that we had made, suddenly all came back,
one after the other, as improbable as it was,
and the last one being the probie. Talk about
reality being stranger than fiction. You know,
it would have been a movie. It would have thought
to be a very bad script. But, you know, here
was that the last guy that we're missing was
Tony. And he came back last. And everyone was
OK in the firehouse, which was, you know, complicated
because then that the search part, you know,
started. And which was the most difficult thing
of all, because, you know, people were fine the
first day. But that was it. And you kept hoping.
It has to be hundreds, if not thousands of people
alive. It has to. And the more we dug, because
we then went back with the guys and filmed as
they were digging, sometimes digging ourselves,
they were no one to be found. And then, unfortunately,
it became not a rescue, but a recovery effort,
which personally, I think, was more complicated
psychologically, because I think on September
11, and that's just a personal... way i feel
but then on september 11 i was you know i was
more reacting i was not uh i was reacting to
what's happening uh no time to think no time
to really uh go through psychologically what's
happening but the recovery effort as you're digging
and as you're you know you're looking for the
remains of people you have too much time on your
hand and you have too much time to process what
you're seeing and what's your what you're feeling
when you're smelling And that's a complicated
thing, at least personally for me it was. But
I think what sustained us was the of individuals
who are willing to risk their life for each other
and for us. And here, even though, you know,
the place, even though we know the time, you
know, was full of dangerous gases and horrible
things that we all breezed in. All they wanted
to do is dig further, is dig longer. We would
have to pull guys out from the piles and the
chief saying, no, no, you have to take a break.
You've been digging for 12 hours nonstop. Go
back to the firehouse. Take a two hour rest.
Then you can come back. And people were almost
fighting. They didn't want to leave. It was really
impressive to see how. You know, New Yorkers,
you know, you were not the nicest people in the
world, you know, trying to take a steal a cab
from another New Yorker. You know, I think, you
know, Crowbar will come out to brass knuckles.
But here at that moment, that spirit of we're
all in this together to see all New Yorkers caring
for each other, to see everyone. We were all
in the same boat and to see the entire world
was like that. But that. I think that drove what
we wanted to do and what we I think we succeeded
in doing in the end is to show that what we had
seen at the moment where the worst of humanity
is revealed. That's terrorism, which is, I think,
you know, the basest human instinct of just instilling
terror to other. The best of all of us is there.
That kindness, that courage, that that willingness
to say no and to put your life on the line to
help others is. was present everywhere you looked.
It was present in the firefighters selflessly
going up and risking their lives. It was in the
people coming down the stairs and carrying each
other, sometimes 80 flights carrying other people.
It was every normal New Yorker coming to their
firehouse, coming to everyone. It was the steel
workers who all came and worked on the site.
It was that sense of humanity, that wave of saying
no to the horror. And that was, I think, what
I keep from all that is a giant lesson of humanity
that this has taught me. Jed, you want anything
to add to that? No, no, no. Jules has said it
perfectly. Yes, no, at the end of the day, 20
years later, You cannot help but be eternally
grateful to this spirit that for Jules and I
is embedded in the first responders and the firefighters.
Because whoever you have in the firehouse, It's
like a club. It's like a class with your schoolmates.
It's like an insane mix of people. But there
is something very special about us because despite
all their differences and their fights sometimes,
they have a higher calling. To witness this higher
calling, to actually see people ready to be better,
to go beyond what normal people you know, ask
of themselves on a daily basis. To see such courage,
there is nothing more inspiring. And it's true,
this is what basically cures a trauma. uh or
cure uh feeling down uh or cure any any moment
where we we're thinking the the world is too
insane and too crazy it's just to just for jules
and i or if i measured it's just to go back to
this day and the days that followed uh to be
able to To have witnessed the best in humanity,
as Drew said. And it is embodied in those crazy,
insane guys and women who live in a firehouse.
Yeah, if you are an alien and you arrive on planet
Earth and you want to see the best of humanity,
yeah, go to the places of work of first responders.
Maybe not go to see where politicians live. Go
to a firehouse. You know what we're about to
do. You'll see the best of us. And so this, yeah,
you have the trauma on one hand and the effect
and the damages. But if you have seen what we've
seen, then this will heal or will at least help
me. deal with the trauma in the best way. And
so 20 years later, so grateful to have seen it.
Yeah, well, I mean, the thing coming from a first
responders lens, so being a fireman and being
so proud, because I see that what you're talking
about and everyone else, you don't see it in
yourself, of course, because that would be narcissism.
But, you know, you recognize it in the men and
women that you work alongside. But one of the
things that I've always said about this, about
the Paris attacks, you know, is, you know, all
the obviously similar events, the London attacks,
is the heroism of the civilians. Just like you
said, just the exact, there's no perfect analogy
than Chief Pfeiffer jumping on your back because
you're there in your beach wear, still, you know,
up front being prepared. to assist, to document,
to all these things. And the stories of heroism
of regular people that worked in the world trade.
Just now, this invasion of the government building,
I see stories of heroism coming out of that.
They weren't expecting a group of people to invade
their office. So I think that, I don't know if
you had the same, but one of the most powerful
things I saw around September last year, 2020,
as strange a year as it was, was the phrase,
I miss 9 -12. And I think people identify that
day, just like you said, as the best of the humanity.
All colors, creeds, races, religions, sexual
orientations came together to fight evil and
to do good. And unfortunately, it's sad, but
it's always how it happens. We saw it after the
attacks of November 13. We saw it even when Notre
Dame was burning. Unfortunately, you know, we're
complicated human beings. It takes, unfortunately,
a tragedy to remind of us the best of us. So
hopefully it can happen without something traumatic
happening. But at least the good part, it's in
us. So really, that's the first part is there.
It's our ability to love and to. to to to to
to be better and to and to sacrifice ourself
is in all of us and uh and i think at least that's
a that's pretty good silver lining absolutely
well you you mentioned paris before we move on
to there um i do want to talk about the mental
domino effect and the physical domino effect
because as we were talking before we started
recording and it's it's a topic that i've talked
about already on the show we're losing hundreds
more men and women post 9 -11. We lost 343 firefighters
specifically, and I know we're getting close
to that number now in post 9 -11 illness. That's
not including law enforcement, as you mentioned,
steel workers, civilians. So what have you seen
being literally, you couldn't have gotten any
closer to that event and being so close to the
city of New York and FDNY, NYPD, the last 20
years, the ripple effect of that horrendous day?
I think everything goes back to that day. And
as I said it, you know, that day you could have
told everyone who was there that was between
the police officers, the fire department, everyone
who was working on the recovery. You could have
told them, you know, this is what we're breathing
in is deadly. It's going to be bad. They would
have said, I don't care. I need to save people.
The problem I have is that, unfortunately, politicians
abandoned. Everyone who was there that day all
the first responders when they refused to take
care of their of ensure that their health would
be Would be will be taking care of their their
medical bills all that and to think that civilians
needed to kind of rise up and and go and speak
at the congress and the senate to plead and to
beg for firefighters and and first responders
all together to have the medical coverage they
needed i think is a shame and it needed to be
done it was done several times john stewart in
particular was a great proponent of that and
and helped a lot with that But, you know, I've
always been and I'm speaking personally, I've
always had a problem with politicians using.
Tragedies to their own advantage. And the fact
of everyone saying, oh, we will never forget,
we'll celebrate them forever. And then, you know,
a month later or a year later when they need
to actually pay a little bit because our friends
are dying and because they were there and saving
people. And now it's like, well, really, are
they really that sick? And do they really need
to go there? I think it's an absolute shame and
it's quite disgusting. So every time we can point
it out. That let's you know, it's one thing to
say, let's never forget. It's another to actually
doing it and putting your mouth where you're
putting your words, where your mouth is, is,
you know, take care of these people. These people
are here for us every single day throughout the
world. Right now, thousands of firefighters are
saving people around the world and in the US
also. So let's remember that, you know, it doesn't
need a tragedy like 9 -11. Unfortunately, that's
what highlighted the amazing work that these
people do every single day. But these people
had to be cherished and had to be protected.
And everyone who gave, you know, a little bit
of themselves on that day needs to be taken care
of and all that. And I think it's shameful that
it takes so long and that we have a fight every
five years to re -up the Zagoroda bill. And I
think it's, you know, it's enough. You know,
we're better than this. if you want to talk about
the trauma and you know of course of course um
it was interesting to to see the the i we understand
your show is about of course all first responders
and and so please uh uh allow us to apologize
as as we are firefighters groupies and and our
experiences with firefighters only we wish we
could talk about police and and construction
workers and everybody else who came. But our
experience is with firefighters. And with firefighters,
we saw a tremendous change in their culture.
When we arrived at the firehouse, when we started
filming in the summer of 2001, we quickly realized
that... The culture in the far house is the culture
of being the biggest macho on the planet. I mean,
you might discover at the end of the day that
they're big teddy bears, but, you know, the way
they talk, it's like, oh my gosh. And so that's
the way it was, you know. You don't ask for help.
Whatever happened stays in the firehouse. If
you have a problem, you talk about it among yourself.
You never, never, never ask for help. Except
when something as big as 9 -11 happened, you
need to ask for help. And those guys didn't.
And we saw first. Yeah, they didn't at first.
And we saw psychologically how damaging. It was
not just in the firehouse, but in every single
firehouse. And people were ringing the alarm,
saying, you know, if you don't talk about it,
if you don't go through the normal, if you don't
recognize it as true trauma, which has some serious
mental and physical... In fact, you're going
to pay a heavy price. And at first, yeah, many
did. But as years passed, we saw the culture
in the FDNY change for the better. And we saw
those guys starting to understand and talk to
professionals, help each other. I mean, there's
still the, you know, the basement firehouse therapy
that is the most amazing one, of course. You
know, you have an issue, you talk to the guys.
No one else understands better than... But it's
not enough. And this was huge to see this change
over the years. And I think 20 years later, the
culture is now... very much understanding of
what trauma is and means and the horrible effect
of post -traumatic disorder. So they're now taking
that very seriously. So that's a good thing that
came out. Yeah, I think that as we described
it before 9 -11, you had kind of that Superman
complex. You know, nothing can hit can can get
me. I'm stronger than anything. And I think through
that and through the department realizing that
and having, you know, these people are now tested
physically, just like all survivors of 9 -11,
not only physically for the cancers and all the
horrible things we diseases. Unfortunately, a
lot of us are suffering from. but also mentally
to make sure that everyone is okay, that everyone
who needs to talk to a professional therapist,
psychiatrist, whatever it is, is there. And it
took, Jadon is right, it took some time, but
I think it's a better department because of it
now. Yeah, absolutely. And I had Nancy Carbone
on the show from Friends of Firefighters and
what they're doing, I think is another great
asset to the FDNY. Exactly, exactly. All right,
well then. I know we're already an hour and a
half in and we're still in New York in 2001.
And there's no rush on my end at all. I mean,
it's such a powerful story and I want to give
you the time to tell it properly. For you personally,
firstly, what was that journey from that event
yourself like? And then the next time I really
saw your work come up was obviously after the
Paris attacks and that beautiful documentary
that you made, which I think is one of my favorite.
documentary pieces ever and it's just I mean
obviously it's the people it's the way you shot
it it's again the the fact that you didn't sensationalize
any of the deaths or anything like that but lead
me through that period between the two and your
own first exposure to that attack as you know
a Frenchman well that's you know after uh doing
9 11 which we you know in a way we we kept doing
over and over because we we did many versions
of it and every year every five years then we
wanted to to to add to it to follow these guys
we did a few documentaries um um We did one on
the four hour on the White House chief of staff,
which was kind of a departure of our traditional
kind of fly on the wall. But we wanted to try
different things. And same thing always. The
way is finding, you know, kind of the person
behind the uniform or behind the title, what
it's like to be. you know, White House chief
of staff, the closest person to a president,
even than the first lady. Then we did one on
the directors of the CIA, which is kind of linked
a little bit, you know, towards terrorism. But
then as we were finishing the one on the CIA,
we were editing, we were in New York, we received
a phone call of friends saying, you know, do
you know what is happening in Paris right now?
It was Friday, November 13, 2015. And as the
first, news was trying to trickling in. They
were talking about bombs at the stadium and then
shootings at cafes. Immediately, we called our
parents who live in Paris, who we knew were in
the neighborhood around the 10th and 11th arrondissement.
And so here we had a very strange... reverse
of what had happened on September 11. On September
11, they were the ones in Paris agonizing at
home and watching on television live as the towers
collapsed and being sure that their sons had
just died in front of them. And to answer your
question from before, it's only the two of us.
We're the only siblings. And here, it was us
watching television, not being able to reach
our parents, knowing they were in the neighborhood
and freaking out like they had before. You know,
we were born and raised in Paris. We spent, you
know, 16 and 19 years there. So and we go back
there often. So it's still, you know, it's it's
it feels very close to home. And to see that
you see on television, that helplessness that
you feel of watching on television, not being
able to do anything, not knowing anything. We
were devastated like everyone. And we then started,
of course, in the coming days after that, hearing
the stories of heroism. It took a turn is that
actually Chief Pfeiffer, so the chief who saved
my my life on 9 -11, who I'm incredibly close
with, became after 9 -11, the chief of the counterterrorism
for the fire department of New York, gave me
a call a few weeks later and said, can you, Jules,
can you arrange a trip that I could go to Paris?
in a few months with heads of counterterrorism
from different fire departments in the US and
a couple of FBI people. And we'd like to meet
everyone in the French government, first responders,
hospitals, fire, police, SWAT teams, et cetera,
to see the lessons we could take from that attack.
What worked, what didn't work. And when, unfortunately,
not if, but when it happens, we can be ready
and put things in place. that will help us. And
so we found ourselves in March of 2016 going
to Paris. I think we had a delegation of about
12 people. And we went to, I had organized to
meet with, from the Ministry of the Interior,
the Prime Minister, the heads of the police,
of the SWAT teams, of the fire department, of
the EMS, et cetera, et cetera. As all these professionals
together were talking and describing what had
happened, we were kind of, I was kind of the
unofficial translator. Here we go. And so we
discovered all of these stories reminded me of
what we had lived through on 9 -11, the heroism
of the first responders, the heroism of the civilians.
After a couple of months thinking about it, saying,
but, you know, we have to tell that story, but
it's a very complicated story. And again, we
know that, you know, telling a story like this
is full of kind of pitfalls of, you know, we
have to do it in the right way and be respectful
and not be gratuitous, just like we had done
with 9 -11. And so we started first to talk to
the... the big organization, the French government,
the head of the fire department and the head
of the police, which I had met through these
trips that I had taken. And they all said, okay,
they all understood where we were coming from.
They had all seen our 9 -11 projects and the
others that we had done and decided to do this.
And started about a long eight -month process
of starting to get to the civilians in particular
and the local firefighters that had participated
that night and been there. And it took a while.
It was made easier by the fact that Judeo and
I were survivors. And so in ourselves, we were
all part of this very strange... a club where
nobody nobody wants to be a member of but we
are you know they're the survivors of terrorism
and i think in the way that we when we met them
we mostly didn't talk about we wanted uh what
we wanted to do or their stories we talked about
our story where we came from, what we had lived
through, the trauma, how that trauma had changed
over the years. Because for them, they were watching
it with very young eyes in a way. Their trauma
was still a year old, which is nothing. And so
we're looking at us with about, at that time,
16 years on a traumatic experience, were really
enabled them to trust us and understand and speak
to them in a way that others could not. And so
we then decided, OK, but, you know, all these
people have agreed for us to do it. But where
how do we do it? And that's why we came up to
do it with Netflix, because it was kind of the
safest place that will do it justice. We didn't
see the documentary knowing that it was already
to be at least three hours long to do it on a
normal network that would then, you know, would
have to cut for commercials or for all that.
That was not the forum for that. The platform
that we thought we needed was that for people
to watch it when they wanted, to stop when they
wanted, to be able to watch the second parts
of it three months later, six months later, two
years later, and not to be rushed to watch it
and to maybe a broadcaster who kind of wanted
to do the best rating numbers. That was not what
it was all about. We managed to, and we're very
grateful that Netflix gave us the freedom to
do that, kind of almost a talking head documentary
with very little images, and trust us to say
a compelling story. That film is kind of the
other end of the spectrum from our original 9
-11, you know, which we started. This is 16 years
later. We're much more mature. But in a way,
we're treating the exact same subject in two
different ways. The first one is with the images
that we film as we were protagonists ourselves
and inside. The other is more a duty of memory.
And so which relies more on the words of these
people. And once again, the courage of the people
that gave us their testimony and were candid
enough to talk about what they lived through,
the civilians, the firefighters, the SWAT members,
to see that humanity, that same best of us that
comes out, was so touching that we knew we needed
to tell that story. But it's very complementary
to our 9 -11 documentary in a way. Yeah, I mean,
it was so incredibly powerful. And like you said,
the courage, because I mean, I have this on the
show today with the courage that you have to
relive that horrific moment to tell the story,
knowing that it's going to help so many people
out there. It was the same thing. And I obviously
want to get you guys to lead us through that
day, at least an overview of it. But the courage
that it took to lose a wife, you know, to see
a friend that didn't make it, you know, and then
to sit there and tell the story. And then also,
and we'll get into it as well, but... But some
of the humor in it, amongst all that death and
destruction, you know, and we'll talk about that
when we get to that point. But, I mean, it was
just, again, completely parallel what I saw in
9 -11, what I saw in 7 -7, you know, with the
reports of that and the kind of stiff, you know,
British upper lip, which I love, stiff upper
lip, like, screw you, terrorists, we're going
back to work. Made me very proud to be British.
But, yeah, I mean, again, but you saw that community,
you saw people banding together, you saw, as
with 9 -11, The firefighter in a station waiting
for possibly another bullshit call to come in
and all of a sudden the worst case scenario.
And clearly, as with the men and women in FDNY
and the surrounding agencies and then the same
in Paris, they clearly were prepared. They'd
done the training. They kept themselves fit.
So as a responder, it was amazing that when they
were dropped right in the middle of it, that
they... had to collect themselves, but then they
went to work. And through that lens, to me, they
walked the walk. There's no better description
than that. No, it's true. And so to go maybe
through for the people who don't really know
what happened, it's quite crazy. So it's a Friday
night, mid -November, and it's a night where
it's actually exceptionally warm and wonderful
outside. Parisian as Parisians are are most of
them are at the cafe drinking a beer having a
cigarette all the terraces are full it's nice
you know full of life we're probably arguing
about politics or whatever it is but and you
have a exhibition match a soccer match playing
the the biggest stadium in Paris and 70 ,000
players And the match is going great. And suddenly
a suicide bomber detonates his explosive vest
in the middle of the in front of the stadium
outside. No one knows exactly at that point what
is happening. They don't even believe they don't
know if it's a terrorist attack, if it's just,
you know, an accident or, you know, whatever.
And the president is there. The president is
in the stadium with his German counterpart. And
over the next, I think, 33 minutes, three groups
of terrorists would attack. Three would detonate
their suicide bombs, suicide vests outside the
stadium. Six different cafes would be shot by
machine guns by a team of roaming terrorists
that would drop them off from their car, spray
an entire terrace, go back in the car, go to
the next one. At the end of that, three more
terrorists arriving at a very busy music hall
where a concert of an American rock band is taking
place. And we'll start shooting in a theater
where there is about 3 ,000 people. All that
within 33 seconds of each other. So imagine on
the perspective of first responders. where you
first have reports of bombs in one location,
then you're getting shootings at another, then
at another, then at another, then another, then
another, then another. And you had that sense
that it's never going to stop. Every time a code
would come in, a different area was under attack
by a different terrorist group, commando. And
it was that... that craziness that on the part
of the first responders, police and fire department,
was incredibly complicated. And yet, as usual,
would rush to the scene. And you see in the documentary,
the incredible work of the firefighters who are
the first responders, the first one who arrived.
And even a shooting is happening, risking their
lives to tourniquet and to try to stanch the
bleeding and all that. And then... The accumulation
of all of that is that... a music concert where,
you know, you have 3 ,000 people in there, three
guys come in with machine guns and shoot indiscriminately
at the crowd. And again, you see these civilians,
the stories of them protecting themselves, protecting
someone weaker than them, protecting complete
strangers, either by escaping, either by playing
dead and covering them with your body as people
are dying all around. And the terrorists will
then proceed to take 11 hostages and wait for
the police to lock themselves in a long but very
narrow hallway with these 11 hostages. And that
hostage negotiation will then take place. And
when you talk about the humor, what we wanted
to show is that humor is a very important part,
I think, of healing. But it's also a way that,
you know, our brain kind of enables us to protect
ourselves. Humor sometimes comes out when you're
stressed, you know, you laugh and all that. And
these moments where you can think that, you know,
how can you even think about laughing when two
terrorists are pointing AK -47s at your heads,
that they're playing with the detonator where
you can see on their vest full of explosives
and they're holding your feet away from them.
It's in these moments that the crazy, surreal
reality happens. And here it happens when the
SWAT team, amazing. people, whether it is in
the US or in France, but here in Paris, these
sweat team members who know it's going to be
complicated. It's a narrow hallway. You have
11 hostages. You have two terrorists armed to
the teeth, AK -47 explosives. We're going to
have to breach at some point, which is, you know,
it's going to be bad for you and for the hostages.
And yet, as they try to negotiate to buy some
time, the negotiator has the thickest southern
accent you can imagine. And so. Comes that surreal
moment where he tries to give the number to call
on the cell phone to negotiate and all that,
except no one understands him. And the hostages
have to repeat for about 15 times the number.
And it becomes kind of a sketch that you think
comes out of Saturday Night Live if it was not
so terrible. All this is to say that you find
these moments where you look at the documentary
and laugh and almost be all ashamed. No, no,
I should not laugh. The hostages themselves and
the people there that will tell that. crazy moment
when you think life is going to be over in an
instant. A moment of laughter, a smile, a twinkle
in the eye, holding someone's hand or just a
square inch of flesh in yours can mean the difference
between life and death, mentally and physically.
And so what we wanted to see in the candidness.
of these incredible testimonies of not only because
they're talking about their courage, but for
some, because they're talking about that, yes,
the terrorist pointed a machine gun at his head
and said, go get my bag full of charges. If not,
I'll kill you and I'll kill your friend. And
he says, but I go there and I pick up the bag
and I feel guilty because I'm giving them more
ammo. but I don't want to die. And I think to
have the honesty to say that is incredibly courageous,
but also very human. And I think it's to be applauded.
All of them that participated, the act of telling
your story is an act of courage because it is
not easy. It is not fun for the most part. It
was difficult. It was long. It was heavy, but
it's... it helps you, it heals you to be able
to tell your story. And here, these people in
particular, who, for the ones in the Bataclan,
the one in the council venue, who had been taken
hostage for two hours, that this moment of their
lives had been taken away from them, these two
hours of their life was taken hostage by the
terrorists, to be able to tell their story minute
by minute, what they saw, what they felt, what
they smelled, was a way to reclaim what had been
stolen from them. And so it was very important.
It was an act of courage, of resilience and healing
on their part. Yeah. You got anything to add
before I kind of throw some things at you, Gideon?
Go ahead. Go ahead. Okay. So, I mean, like I
said, anyone listening, this is an absolute must
listen as a human being, as a first responder.
I mean, excuse me, as a must watch. I mean, it
was such a... Absolutely one of the most powerful
things I've ever seen. And being a responder
myself, you know, I can invest in that even further.
But a few of the takeaways, and obviously I don't
want to go over the whole entire thing, but a
few things I think that were very powerful to
me. The first one was you mentioned the French
prime minister was there. Is it prime minister
or president? You get the president and the interior,
the minister of the interior. Okay, president.
The president of the stadium, yeah. Okay, we'll
make sure I get the right title. So it's a Germany
versus France game. And so when the initial explosions
go off, it's outside the stadium, even though
it sounds like one of the terrorists tried to
make their way into the stadium. And what I was
very impressed with was the fact that he chose
to... tell them to keep playing to try not to
arouse suspicion at first you're like oh well
that's easier said than done but then in the
next breath they say that his own son is in the
stadium so i thought that was very powerful because
he's not making it now for strangers he's including
his own family member and that decision undoubtedly
saves lives But the amazing part is he has very
little information. It's actually the fire commander
in the stadium that the president goes towards
and said, what do you think? And the fire department
official there says, we don't know what's happening.
We have two choices. If we don't if we stop and
panic people, we might have a frenzy. There's
70 ,000 people there. If we tell if we stop the
game and say, OK, let's evacuate. We don't know
what's outside. And so. He makes a very difficult
decision to keep everyone inside, including his
son. It is a very personal one. And fortunately,
it was the best, because if if they would have
panicked people, they would have been a stampede
and people would have died from that. If they
would have let them outside. You had two more
suicide bombers, unbeknownst to them, that were
waiting, that exploded themselves a bit later
on. So but again, you know, making the right
decision sometime, it's it's. Inches and seconds
is the difference between life and death. And
these decisions are hard to take, but fortunately,
they were the right ones. Absolutely. Well, another
thing that I thought was very powerful is as
it unfolds, and again, you said about the heroism,
the way that the first responders, a lot of them
obviously were the firefighters initially, segregated
off, sectioned off. They had the group leader
and the person assisting. And they started triaging
and they, you know, the innovation, like using
the barriers as stretchers, you know, some of
those things. But you saw people banding together.
You saw these responders acting just like you
said. There was no what we call warm zone. They
had no idea if one of those people in the crowd
was another one with a gun or a bomb that was
going to kill himself. So initially, knowing,
like you said, there's chaos and ultimately what
seemed to be a journey south to the Bataclan.
It was just the heroism of these men and women,
like you said, sheltering people, the actual
responders themselves. And I think a very powerful
moment to me that's kind of summed up from the
responder's lens was the doctor, medicine, I
think it was, who had been on scene. He was kind
of orchestrating the response. He had a chest
wound patient. He told him the whole pressure.
obviously got caught up with all the other triage
that was going on. And then when he came back,
that person had passed away in that same seated
position. And even though he was trying to maintain
his composure, you could see in his eyes, knowing
responders, that that moment has definitely stayed
with him. And what's, if I may, what's incredible.
So he's a fire department doctor, which means
he's military. He was deployed. He's done Afghanistan.
He's done Mali. So he's been on theaters of war.
He's treated war wounds and all that. And here
to see it and you see it in his eyes in the cafe
that he knows that he's been to that restaurant.
And then he talks about that. And just because
he's doing triage and there's 30 other people
and for 30 other people, it's at least, you know,
20 seconds per person. And by the time he comes
back, that that person has died. And to see almost
a tear in his eye and holding that emotion. You
see that humanity that rises to the surface,
that all of them, even though they did an incredible
job. Can you imagine you arrive at a terrace
where you have 28 seats, 24 people are dead on
that terrace or dying? And you are at first two
trucks and everyone has to do everything. It
is unbelievable the work they've done, the people
they managed to save with an air courier effort,
coordinating with the civilians themselves who
were helping. But they all talk about one thing.
They all talk about when they would treat people.
The people themselves, the victim would say,
don't take care of me. Take care of the next
person. They're much worse off. I'll be OK. Take
care of my neighbor. Take care of people that
they don't know. And that was really what what
struck them is, again, that sense of protection
for for for the other for caring for the other
above themselves. Yeah, I think another powerful
moment for me. You had the one lady, and I meant
to write the names of all these people, but I
forgot. But I guess it's probably a good thing
I didn't because people listening probably don't
know which person it was anyway. But there was
a couple in the Bataclan. So now those three
terrorists have come in. You've got 1 ,500 people
at this rock concert. They are literally executing
to the point where there are piles, mountains
of bodies. And this couple finds their way into,
was it a bathroom where they got into the ceiling
space? And this one lady is heavier. She's, you
know, she's obese. And she's trying to get in.
And obviously, as you're recounting it, you know,
you can imagine, especially she's probably wearing
heels or something as well. And she's trying
to climb up into this section that they found
in the ceiling. And she keeps falling. And she
says, and you can almost see this, all these
people waiting. to get up into this safe haven
away from these murderers. And this one woman
is big and she can't get up there. So immediately
you think she's going to say, and then everyone
pushed her out of the way and they went up themselves.
But she said that the complete opposite, that
the people were cheering her on and helping her
get up there. And she got up there. And I thought
that was an incredible moment of humanity because
you would think the stampede selfishness effect
would kick in, but it was the polar opposite.
basically helped her emotionally and physically
get in that hole before they got in themselves.
I'm talking too much. You're the one who took
the best. As you said, it's one of those moments
where you expect the worst, but the best happened.
Yeah, this lady who's here with her husband and
they've drove on the same day hours. on their
their small cars coming from the north of france
to listen to one of their best uh rock band and
uh here they are finally and uh they they the
two the two kids are at home uh the babysitter
is is taking care they finally have the evening
for themselves that they go to to paris and and
they know they're going to have a great time
And the next thing they know, yeah, you have
three terrorists shooting at each other, at everybody
around them. And the wound of an AK -47 is horrible.
So they arrive along with maybe 20, 30 people
in a tiny little room. They try to lock the door,
but it doesn't really lock. They are in this
room where they don't know what to do. There
is no windows, no escape route. Behind the doors,
they still hear the gunfires. And suddenly someone
says, there is a hole through the toilet ceiling,
which is a small area in the back. And so little
by little, people are... are getting up there.
And to get up there, you have to put one foot
on the toilet, then the second foot on maybe
the area where you put the toilet paper. Anyway,
it's not that easy. But come the turn of this
woman, and as you said, she's... She's kind of,
yeah, she's obese and it's very hard for her.
The first time a foot goes through the toilet,
the second time she falls on her husband. And
and yet at that time, they're looking at each
other. She's she's feeling so guilty that every
second she she's wasting, you know, the terrorists
are going to open the door and kill everybody
and it will be her fault. But no, the people
behind her who's making a line are cheering her
and saying, you can do it. And finally, she managed
to do it with maybe, I think, a foot on her husband's
head and her other foot. Someone is helping her
with their hands. And the next thing they know,
all those people are in this kind of strange
place between the roof and this. and the ceiling
and they are safe or at least they think and
they hear the sound of the guns all over and
they don't know that for the next two hours they
are finding refuge exactly on the ceiling above
where the venue is, where the stage is. pretending
to be dead among tens who are actually dead.
Everybody is lying down. And that's the scene
of hell that was the Bataclan. And it was such
a powerful moment. I think the other one, there's
one more thing I want to talk about and then
we'll go to Notre Dame because I know we're almost
at two hours now. The other thing I think was
very haunting was one of the women had the realization
that three terrorists commanded the action of
1 ,500 men and women. And there was that realization
of, you know, I think, but ultimately, what if
we had rushed them? What if we had gone? Then,
you know, some of us would have been killed,
but the rest would have been saved. But I think
it was a very... powerful lens into the fact
that fear can paralyze us you know and obviously
i'm sure they seemed like there was more than
three of them too with all the you know the horrendous
executions that were going on but i'm sure that's
something that's going to haunt her to the day
again you could see it in her face that so many
people were killed is it 130 i think that day
in the end wasn't it in paris altogether it was
190 190 oh i got that wrong okay 139 90 at the
beta clone and but it's 130 I apologize okay
yeah so I mean you know a huge amount but I mean
again easier said than done any one of us would
probably would have been trying to find our void
space in the ceiling somewhere to get away as
well but that was a powerful moment that how
you know again how a weapon can completely offset
the quote -unquote fair fight and put you know,
innocent civilians and make them so vulnerable.
I mean, I just had people from the pulse attacks
on a few weeks ago, same exact thing. So just
to kind of put it out, I thought that was a very
powerful moment as well. Yeah, because I think
that's where you see really the, it talks to
the helplessness of it. And when she says in
her interview, it's really, I can't believe that
three jackass, because I think that's what she
is, are... You know, we're 1500 and we're at
the mercy of three jackasses with guns. And it's
yes, it's the power of fear and terror, because
this is the point of terrorism is terrorizing
people and making them flee and making them full
of fear and paralyzing them. But yet, as we see
that, we see the country is, you know, I think
this documentary is in a way a perfect. a few
to terrorism because I think the contrary happened.
At the moment where they wanted to terrorize
us and paralyze us, that's where you saw the
most incredible moments of courage, of compassion,
of love. in the middle of that horror and hate.
And that's, I think, is really what really prevailed.
And that's what we should hang on to. I think
we've always, and Julien was talking about that
at the beginning, the way these people behave,
I think, is really for us kind of a vaccine against
depression, against that. you know, that thinking
of, of, of everything, the world is such a horrible
place because when you hear the, the, the radio
or the television, you know, it's not very, but
when you see that at moments like this, you know,
people can be so beautiful, so amazing. I think
that's, you need that, you need that, that kind
of little shot in the arm that says, okay, you
know, if they could do it, of course I can, or
I need to try. Absolutely. Well, just one more
element of that, and then I want to move on to
Notre Dame. I'm going to be mindful of your time.
I think the other very powerful thing, and again,
for the responders listening, I mean, I did my
best to become the best version of me. Was I
perfect? No. Was I the best firefighter, paramedic?
No. But I mean, I think that's something we all
push towards. But I think it's very important
to highlight that when the SWAT team actually
made entry, Two terrorists with semi -automatic
weapons that had bomb vests around them. It took
them one minute and six seconds to neutralize
the threat in a narrow hallway with hostages.
So I don't think there's any better illustration
of you are the sum of all your training up to
that point, whether it's an organization with
this individual, that that could have ended with
a failure. Lots of dead hostages and police officers
and maybe a further rampage because they just
killed all the cops that came and so they could
go back in and do some more. So what was your
perspective on that? I think the SWAT team commander,
which is a fantastic human being, who had the
words that, you know, at the kosher supermarket
earlier in January, who had been with his SWAT
team there after the Charlie Hebdo attacks. And
here he's faced with an impossible situation,
which he says actually to the chief of police
who asked him, are we going to be OK when you
breach? And the commander of the SWAT says, you
know, stupidly, I told him the truth. I said,
no, it's not going to be OK because we're in
a narrow hallway. We have 11 hostages. We have
two guys with AK -47s and suicide vests. And
I'm going to lose probably half of my guys and
half of the hostages. But we have no other choice.
We have to do it. And we're willing to take this.
And when the commander is about to breach, he
actually does something that he never does before.
He checks in with his men and said, are you guys
OK with it? He's their superior. He doesn't have
to ask them whether they feel OK about the mission
or not. But he wanted to make sure they realized
what they were about to do. And all of them to
a T were saying, of course, let's go in. We know
we know the risk. Let's do it. And to see that.
Again, that time distortion, when the hostages
talk about that breach, for them it lasts half
an hour. But we found the tape of it, and it's
a minute and six seconds where the guys are emptying
clips of AK -47s into a giant shield that protects
the SWAT teams. And as a result of that, after
that one minute and six seconds, the two terrorists
will be dead. One, by detonating, is a suicide
vest. The other will be shot before he could
do so. There's not a single cop who's... There
is one cop who's hurt with a bullet to the hand,
but that's it. And none of the hostages are hit.
So it is almost like a miracle operation because
technically half of them should have died. So
the courage of these incredible SWAT members,
which I'm close to some of them and I really
admire them the same way I admire the firefighters.
They were incredible that night. And it's people
who are willing to put their lives on the line
for all of us. that command our respect and for
us to be grateful. Beautiful. Well, Jedion, I
know you've got to go soon. So before you do,
I want to get you in one more time. And I'm sorry
that we've gone so far. I know you've got to
pick up your kid. Just quickly, so tell me about
Notre Dame. I was actually in Paris in 2016,
so a year after the attacks, but before the fire.
So we've literally got pictures outside Notre
Dame. So again, as Parisians, tell me about that
event and what made you want to do another documentary
on them. Like many people around the world, we
watch on TV or on a computer screen this monument,
you know, slightly, I mean, completely disappearing
before our eyes. And it was not just any monument.
It was Notre Dame de Paris. It was the cathedral
of... of Notre Dame. It was this place where
everybody who has been lucky enough to travel
to Paris had seen it and maybe visited inside.
It was this homage to what human being can do
that is so beautiful that is, whether you're
a believer or not, it didn't matter. It was It
was a beautiful piece of culture, of architecture.
It represented so much. It was built over 800
years ago at a time where it was just insane
to conceptualize how to build something so monumental
that would stand time. There was revolutions.
There was... kings and emperors and government
that tried to destroy it. Time alone was not,
you know, nice to this beautiful place. somehow
it's with all the crisis of time. And so it's
one of those monuments where you're alive and
wherever you are in the world, you're thinking,
okay, everything is going bad. You switch on
TV, you listen to your podcast, your radio, the
world is going mad. But at least... You can be
pretty sure there are some monuments in the world,
some things that are really standing and that
will be standing for the rest of time. And Notre
Dame de Paris, for everything that it represented,
was one of those monuments. You know, the Pyramid
of Egypt, anything you can think of that just
huge, the seven beauties of the world. But here
it was being destroyed in front of you. I mean,
this thing that was making your life more grounded
suddenly was disappearing in smoke. And so Jules
and I, yeah, we lived it live like most people
and we're so relieved when we discovered that.
the fire department of paris had managed to to
save the notre dame and uh and of course we thought
you know uh there gotta be more to it than just
guys and and girls coming in and and putting
water on on it and and and that's when we discovered
uh again thanks to chief pfeiffer that um and
Jules' relations with the French fire department,
that the rescue of Notre Dame was nothing but
easy. That Notre Dame should have been destroyed
ten times that evening. And if it was not for
the absolute abnegation and sacrifice of the
firefighters, stories that were not told, stories
that people of Paris and France didn't know about.
Yeah, it would be Paris without Notre Dame, which
is something insane to think about. It's like
Egypt without the pyramids. And so we started
to... to talk to the firefighters and and discovered
that what they had gone through what they were
what they thought was was just insane and um
and juju so please uh please go i think i'm so
sorry i i have to run no please thank you so
much you've been so generous with your time it
was a great honor to uh to to to be on your show
uh your show is amazing thank you so much Jules,
forgive me, I have to talk to the kids. Merci
beaucoup. I'll panel your answers. I'll have
to do a thicker French accent, but I think I
can. We'll just pretend to be both. No, but it
was really that, as Julien said. The relationship
we had already created with the head of the fire
department, which I changed. it was not the same
from um november 13 but it was his deputy which
i had got to know a lot of Paris firefighters
and SWAT teams from Paris did a lot of trips
coming to New York and that I would greet them
when they would arrive with Chief Pfeiffer and
there were lots of exchanges that we've done
over the years and so we have a great relationship
with these people and I called the chief of the
fire department in Paris a couple of weeks after
to tell him that we're We're all so proud. We're
all watching and in awe of what you guys did.
And he said, you know, you have so many incredible
stories. You know, I think you should maybe do
a documentary about it. So I went to Paris to
meet with him and discovered. Once again, you
know, this incredible courage, not only of the
firefighters, but of the civilians that came
to help, the people who work in the church who
came to work, the people who were working on
the scaffolding that came to help also. Also,
that comedy of error, that humor that we were
talking about on November 13, that is almost
there. That kind of, another kind of, you have
the impression, a cyanide -like sketch of when
they go to try to retrieve the Crown of Thorn,
because the Crown of Thorn is supposed to be
in a safe at Notre Dame. Except that, you know,
so you have to imagine, this building, the entire
roof is on fire, and firefighters are on teams
working on all the facade. up down on the right
on the left in the north in the south and one
team in particular is in is in charge of saving
the artwork and and all of the relics because
there is actually a department in a special department
in the fire department that takes firefighters
in charge of saving um works of arts who operate
in museums and all that because it is something
that you have to think about you know Don't go
put water on a Leonardo da Vinci or something
like that on a painting. And so, you know, here
are these firefighters who at first, you know,
were so excited. Oh, great. I'm going to go fight
the fire on Notre Dame because it's firefighters
and firefighters. You have that amazing duality
where you don't want bad things to happen. But
if there is a big fire, you want to be the one
who is the first due and we'll get to it. He
arrives. Oh, great. I'm going to be able to go
up there, go close to the fire. I'll be with
the nozzle. It'll be amazing and all that. And
the chief said, well, I'm sorry, but you need
to go and find the crown of thorn and all that.
OK, I'm not very religious, but OK, let's go
find it. And comes that committee of error where
they have to look for a safe. They look everywhere.
As he says, he looks behind paintings. He looks
on the floors. He moves everything while the
roof is on fire and lead is melting and is falling
like a cascade of lava in the middle. And so
they have to be careful that it doesn't fall
on them. They finally found the safe, break the
safe, come out triumphantly with the crown of
thorns. And as he says, you know, I'm carrying
really the top like this because I don't want
to break it. I don't want to break the thorns
because, you know, a crown of thorns without
thorns, I'll get into trouble. So he comes in
and out. And here comes the curator of Notre
Dame who said. And here we see this amazing firefighter
so proud to come. And unfortunately, we have
to tell him it's not the right one. That's the
display one. And they go back into another treasure
hunt to try to find it. So it's what we wanted
to show in most of our program. Reality is messy,
is beautiful, is funny, is dramatic. That's the
beauty of human nature. You can overcome everything
with humor and with love. And so here, to see
these incredible firefighters who, what we didn't
realize at the time, you know, a few of them
decide to go up and are sent in a suicide mission,
in a way. There is no one, no civilians anymore
in Notre Dame. The church has been, the cathedral
has been evacuated. the two towers, which holds
the bells, the bells are weights about eight
to 10 tons each, and there's about 10 of them.
And they realized that inside of these towers,
the frame that holds the bell is all made out
of wood, and it's starting to catch fire, which
means that at some point, the beams are going
to collapse, the bells are going to come crashing
down, and you'll have a domino effect and the
entire cathedral is going to implode into itself.
And here is the Head of the fire department who
is faced with two choices. One, he does nothing,
pulls everybody out, let the building collapse.
The world will lose one of these most beautiful
icons of architecture and faith and art. But,
you know, no one will take place. Or you send
a commando that. knowing that you have about
half an hour before the collapse, who have to
try to put water on the beams that are holding
the bells and save the entire edifice at the
cost of their lives. And the chief of the fire
department goes and talks to the French president,
explained to him the choices, and the president
said, go for it. You have a commando of about
10 firefighters who go up and will fight their
way inside of the tower, fight their way up the
stairs, and will actually extinguish the fire
probably five minutes, service five minutes to
spare. But within these five minutes, it could
have been the end of all these firefighters and
that amazing monument. So you have all of these
incredible. And what I love is these firefighters,
like all firefighters, took. in such beautiful
terms. It's not fancy. It's not, you know, they
don't have degrees in artistic writing and all
that. But it comes from the heart and it's quite
profound and it's quite moving when they talk
about their love for their fellow firefighters,
for their love for their job, their love for
Paris, their love for what they are going to
do. And it's simple and it's touching. And once
again, inspires us because that's what we always
want. We're a group of firefighters, so every
time we can praise them, we'll do it. But these
are, you know, these amazing heroes and reminds
us of a moment where we think everything can
be over. Well, not always. You still have that
glimmer, that spark of hope is in all of us.
And that's what we have to remind people, especially
this year, or at least this year, I should say.
Yeah, well, I mean, absolutely. And I think that's
what I saw, again, as a fireman. So understanding.
the logistics the actual dangers of what they
did and even just the fact they even had water
so far up you know having to go through all these
like ancient stairwells i'm amazed they even
managed to get a water supply in the first place
but to to have to be standing under wooden structures
that are holding bells of that size they knew
if if if one of those broke that was it they
were all going to get you know taken down with
the bell and obviously killed immediately but
but again and you you know that firsthand When
you're a firefighter, you don't think about that.
You think about it. It's in the back of your
head because that's what makes you a good firefighter.
You're not oblivious to the danger. You are aware
of the danger and you take into consideration.
But you know why you're here. And at the same
time, you know, it's the best feeling in the
world as you go into a firehouse after a good
job. There's smiles all around and it smells
like a fireplace on their bunker gear and everyone
is happy because they've done a good job or they
save people. That's the best reward. is helping
out someone at the end of the day absolutely
well a couple things i want to touch on that
one um so firstly just like tony you had a rookie
but this time it was a female firefighter who
had not seen fire until this point. She's been
on for two weeks. She's on, you have to think,
a woman firefighter, young, fantastic, lots of
courage, lots of heart. She's been on the job
for, I think, two weeks or two months, I don't
remember. And her first job is actually at Notre
Dame. She's first due, which means she's the
first truck to arrive. They go up all the way
to the inside of the roof. And there is a little
door that comes into the roof. It's full of smoke.
The fire has started probably half an hour ago.
They go in, doesn't see anything. She goes with
her officer. They're attached to a rope and they
go up. They don't see anything. And it's getting
warmer and warmer and warmer. And she's never
been to a fire. So she says, OK, it's getting
hot, but I don't want to say anything because,
you know, I don't know if I'm supposed to say
anything. And, you know, I want to do a good
job. And at some point, her officer turns around
and says, let's go out. It's too hot. And indeed,
when they come out, they start to see that all
of their bunker gear is almost like shining in
a metallic way. It's because the lead, the outside
of the roof is all lead sheets, was melting and
was melting on them in pools of molten lava,
in a way, and was starting to burn them. And
their helmets started to melt. it was so hot
and here she is that's her first fire and she
incredibly bravely goes in the middle of the
fire itself and then would fight all night uh
on this you know you always have And it's, you
know, these little things of having another rookie
there. I think for November 13, it ended up that
there was a cameraman in one of the fire trucks
and that was first due to one of the cafes. So
you always have little, life is very strange
and repeats itself. Yeah. Well, with the molten
lead, I think one of the most powerful images
was the gargoyle with the lead spilling out of
his mouth. where normally it would be water.
And here you have this, yes, molten lead being
spitted out of the statues like this. It's quite
an incredible sight. Very, very eerie. They all
describe it as that eeriness, especially because,
you know, it's whether you've seen Notre Dame
in the Hunchback of Notre Dame on Disney with
the Hunchback, you know, or you've seen the different
movies. It represents, it's more than just a
church. It evokes something, whether you're French,
you're American, you're wherever, that it was
more than a building. It is more than a building.
Each stone has a little bit of part of our common
humanity in all of us, because it belongs to
the world, these kind of places. Yeah, and I'm
assuming that the bells rang following Bastille.
I mean, some very powerful moments in French
history. Yes, they did. And they were after each
world war. And it was an amazing moment when
we discovered, you know, that part of Paris,
it's on Ile de la Cité, which is one of the two
islands right smack in the middle of Paris itself
on the Seine River that traversed the town. And
that little island is a little bit like it's
a small village into itself. You know, they have
their own kind of little culture. They kind of
look at outsiders strangely and all that. And
here they would talk about, you know, Notre Dame
is almost the breathing, beating heart of that
little village. They hear its sounds when the
bells ring, when the – all that. And suddenly
after the fire, the – that beautiful monument
had gone silent, had gone mute. And they would
describe it almost like a patient that had gone
into a coma. And we're waiting for it to speak
and wake up and breathe again. And a few months
after the fire, the former French president died,
Jacques Chirac, and it's customary to normally
ring the bells. Except the bells, there's no
more electricity. There's no more of that. Except
that the people at Notre Dame decides to go up
and ring the bell by hand, by attaching a rope
to the knocker. All of us, because they invited
me to come with them, were rolling for 45 minutes,
rang the bells of Notre Dame, the biggest one,
which is 13 tons, by hand, which was a surreal
experience. And when we came back down, people
stopped, the people that went up and said, you
finally gave us back our beating heart. To hear
her, it was like that comatose patient that woke
up and said. I'm still alive. I'm still here.
So it really represents, you have so many things
that place represents for people of Paris, for
people of the world, for people of France. Beautiful.
Well, I think that's a perfect place to kind
of end the conversation there. Some few closing
questions I'd love to ask people. I'd love to
get your mind as well. The first one is, is there
a book that you love to recommend to people that
can be related to what we've discussed today
or something completely different? OK, I'll have
to find it again. I remember one of the things
and I think that corresponds to that. There was
an amazing book that I had read extracts when
I was in high school in France growing up that
they they made you read. And it was I think it
was the letters that were sent by the people
that were put to before it. takes place during
the Second World War in France, and it was the
resistance fighters and their last letters before
they were executed by the Germans. And in these,
you found this incredibly touching letter, and
I remember reading one in particular of a young
16 -year -old boy who was about to be executed
for being part of the resistance, and he was
executed by the Nazis, writing a last letter
to his mother, asking her not to cry because
of what he had done, he had lived. And he had
done it in a way to save people, to save life
and to preserve freedom. And in these moments
of selflessness, I've always been touched by
that, by these people like firefighters, like
police officers, like first responders who are
willing to put their lives on the line. for the
rest of us. And I always find that and that book
that always struck me, I'll have to find it again
and give it to you. But you put me on the spot.
Sorry. Beautiful. Thank you. That's a great,
great answer. What about movies? Is there a movie,
not a documentary, but a regular, like, you know,
fictional film that you like? But that's a problem.
I watch, you know, a whole lot of television
and film and series and all that. So I'll go
in first and see documentaries. And again, it's
maybe on the same subject, but you have an incredible
documentary on World War Two in France and the
resistance called The Sorrow and the Pity by
Max Ophuls. It's just about four hours long.
It's it was filmed, I think, 15 years after the
war. And it's a fascinating look into. normal
human beings who suddenly find themselves you
know their world put upside down and that's the
occupation at that time and having to fight even
though they're not you know they're not trained
they're not all that and how you know you you
face evil so it always kind of relates to the
things in terms of movies oh there's too many
of them it's it's hard to uh to think in them
i'll have to think by by genre and all that but
uh that's too hard there's too many of them Beautiful.
That was great. I've never heard of the sorrow
and the pity before, but it's funny. I meant
to say as well, when we started, the very first
explosion on November 13th was in a stadium where
France and Germany were playing a friendly match.
And again, that goes to show that people, you
know... innately are good and sometimes some
bad people get put in positions of power or you
know whether it's power governmentally whether
it's power because of a weapon they hold but
ultimately we're just men and women who want
to feed our children put a roof over our heads
you know and watch them grow up but and that's
why you see in every conflict you never you know
People of all sorts, you know, are stepping up
against tyranny, no matter where they're from,
no matter what country they're part of, their
religion and all that. That spark of hope and
humanity is in all of us. And we see it time
and time and time and time again. Absolutely.
All right. Well, the next question. Is there
a person you'd recommend to come on this podcast
as a guest to talk to the first responders, military
and associates? Yes. Piper. And yes, I'll talk
to him. I'll see if he's interested and I'll
ask him to reach out to you if he is. Beautiful.
Thank you. And actually on that same token. Because,
for example, you mentioned the helmet. It's one
of the things that drives me crazy is people
looking down their nose at firefighters from
other countries because they don't wear what
I call the leather sombrero that we have here,
the antiquated helmet. And people in the fire
service love it and they hate pistol grips. But
the reality is the men and women of the fire
service around the world do the same job. So
that's the kind of message that I want. But I
would love to get a member of Sapo -Pompier.
the paris french firefighter but obviously they
have to speak english if there was one that had
been at both events or in one or the other i
can talk uh let me see what i can do i let me
think of a couple of heads i can think of a couple
of them One would be great is the one who was
chief of the fire department on November 13,
but he's a very, very, very busy man still. So
I don't know. But if not, I can try to think
of firefighters that were at both, either Charlie
Hebdo on November 13 and Notre Dame. I have a
couple of friends. I'll reach out to them. I'll
see which one has the better English. Beautiful.
Thank you so much. All right. So then the very
last question before I let you go, before we
make sure everyone knows how to find the films
you've done, if there's anything that you do
want to say as far as future projects that won't
be back. Bad luck. What do you do to decompress?
Being very French, I cook. To decompress, it's
basic, simple pleasures in life. I will cook.
I will garden. I will have amazing meals with
my friends and drink a nice bottle of wine with
my family. Right now, it's around the fireplace.
Just normal things. Really normal things. Enjoy
the people who are around me. That's what I take
from all that. Every single happy moment is to
be treasured like it's the last one. And it doesn't
have to be a big thing. It could be this amazing
moment where you have a dinner party. Well, nowadays,
this past year, we didn't have a few. But where
everyone is having a great time and laughter
is echoing through the apartment. That's all
it takes. That's happiness for me. Beautiful.
Yeah, I think that's something that's been the
negative this last year, even though this last
year is what you make of it. And in comparison
to some of the events we discussed, it was a
very good year for most people. But yeah, that
tribal element, that community, I think is so
important. We're a social animal. We need our
social contact. It defines who we are as a species.
Absolutely. But it will be good. Again, we've
lived on this earth through much, much worse.
It will pass. It will be horrible. And we have
to remember the loss and the people who we've
lost along the way and celebrate their life and
their courage. But this too shall pass. Yes.
Yeah. And I think just like what we've discussed
as well, we've been taught some lessons. We've
been taught some lessons on our country's wellness.
We've been taught some lessons on the environment.
So I hope. We will take those lessons with us
and improve in the future. But we all have to,
I think it's Chief Pfeiffer who always talks,
when he talks about the trauma we've all lived,
he said the most, you know, when you live a trauma
like that, you have two choices. One, you don't
learn anything from it. You don't gain anything
from it. And all this is for nothing. Or two
is you try to find something positive in all
of this. You remember it always, but you don't
let it define you. You take it inside of you,
you let it transform or add something positive
to your life, and then you move on while never
forgetting. But do not be defined by that. And
so that's the things we have to do. And same
thing by this. That does not define us. We've
learned all have lessons from this. Let's take
positive ones and move on and remember this moment.
Beautiful. Well, one, I did put some posts out
asking if people had questions. And I think there
was a couple. One, do you still stay connected
with the department? Obviously, you've told us
that you're good friends with Chief Pfeiffer.
firehouse every now and then which is always
amazing even though there was very few i think
from the 55 that work there there's probably
three from that day so you know every now and
then i arrive and there's a rookie open the door
and say yes sir how can i help you go go wish
the the rig and go make me a coffee and then
i'll go and see the guys but you know it's fun
it has a magical feeling for me beautiful and
then the other one is people ask about a follow
-up but obviously we're about to hit 20 years
without jinxing you and getting to... No, no,
no. Well, we've always every five years, we've
always did kind of what we call an update towards
the end. We always do a half an hour of after
the documentary on, you know, what are these
people that become what has happened or highlighting
certain things happening, whether it was the
psychological trauma. We did that for the 50th
anniversary for the 10 year. It was more, unfortunately,
the people starting to die and we had lost two
close. uh friends firefighters from the firehouse
due to that so um for the 20th we're wearing
talks right now too but we'll most probably do
an update for for that point but um it's a it's
still a little bit early right now but we're
considering it of course Beautiful. Well, Jules,
I just want to say thank you so much. I mean,
this random English bloke reached out, you know,
and I want to actually before I want to say thank
you as well to Kate Casey, because I had been
looking for you guys for a long time. As I mentioned
before, I totally understand the nature of what
you do and just your personalities that you don't
want to be out there. But when Kate had managed
to do that incredible conversation with you on
her podcast, in response to mine, someone tagged
her. She immediately. messaged me and sent me
your email so we're having this conversation
because of her but um but yeah i want to say
thank you so much we've been talking for two
and a half hours um but you know the the the
lens that you have through from nine you know
from from new york through to paris i think is
invaluable and even though the documentaries
speak volumes your yours and Jedion's story through
your eyes, through your words, I think is something
that a lot of us haven't heard. So thank you
so much for being so generous today. No, my pleasure.
And thank you to you and all these amazing first
responders. All we do is really an homage to
them and a way to say thank you in a way that
we'll never be able to thank them enough. How
can you thank someone who saved your life? So
it's our pleasure and it's our honor to be able
to help in any small way. It was a fun conversation.
I really appreciate it.