Memorial Land (2012)

In the decade since the events of 9/11/2001, the United States has been engaged in a national act of memorial making. Some of these 9/11 memorials are contested sites, where conflicting visions and voices clash. But most are quiet and deeply personal. This short non-fiction film examines some of these memorials, and the reasons why seven people made the unlikely decision to build them. A woman in Wisconsin hopes to franchise her homemade memorial in all 50 states. A gay priest in Kentucky dedicates a storefront church to a victim of 9/11. A man in New Jersey builds a scale model of the Twin Towers on his front lawn and decorates them with Christmas lights. None of these monument makers had lost any friends or relatives that day. All of them watched the tragedy unfold at a distance, and it is this distance that they hope to cross.