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The plot of WTC View comes from writer/director Brian Sloan's own real-life experiences on Sept. 11. Additionally, much of the film's dialogue, and especially its many telephone answering machine monologues, are also drawn from actual 9/11 events and conversations.

Sloan explains: “The plot is based on the fact that on the night of Sept. 10, just before I went to bed, I placed an online ad on the Village Voice website for a roommate for my downtown apartment. When everything happened on the 11th, I left the apartment to stay with my boyfriend in Brooklyn. Then on the 12th, I got a number of messages from people who wanted to come and look at the place, even though I wasn't there and you couldn't get to my neighborhood as it had been closed off.”

When Sloan told others about the messages, they didn't believe people had actually called about renting an apartment the day after Sept. 11. “But then I'd play them the messages, and they were just stunned.”

Thus was born the idea for WTC View.

“When I started writing [the script], I had transcribed the messages from my answering machine onto my computer,” Sloan says. "Some of the messages in the film are almost verbatim copies of the phone messages I received, and some others are made up.”

Regarding the hopeful renters in the film, Sloan says: “They are all composites of the many people I showed the apartment too. It was probably about 30 or so people who came to see the place. It actually took me much longer than Eric to find someone to move in — for me it was more like two months rather than two weeks. People were just in a very indecisive mood at that time because there was such uncertainty in the air.”

Sloan recalls his own experience as a witness to history on Sept. 11, and how it compelled him to create WTC View: “I was in my apartment on 9/11 and was woken up by a message from my boyfriend on my answering machine. He was on the Brooklyn Bridge and calling to tell me what was happening, but I couldn't understand his message as I was half-asleep. I thought he said there was a fire on my street or something, so I got out of bed and looked out the window and then saw what was happening.

“I think one thing I wanted to convey [in making the film] was that, for people living in lower Manhattan especially, 9/11 was not something that was on TV. It was happening live and you could see and feel and hear everything going on. I mean when the towers collapsed, you could feel the ground shaking underneath you.”

Beyond WTC View's value as a gay work, the film is also serving as an educational tool for teaching modern history. Sloan explains, “The film recently screened at the University of Ohio where the students had a full class period of discussion afterwards.” This fall, WTC View is also scheduled to screen at Boston College, Princeton, New York University, Sarah Lawrence College and possibly Yale University as well.

Sloan wants WTC View to capture what he calls a very unique period in history. “I felt the day-to-day aspects of life post-9/11 were so unusual and strange that they needed to be remembered somehow,” he says.

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