To mark the 20th anniversary of 9/11, a German-American filmmaker is commissioned by German TV to make an experimental short film based on his uncle’s famous photograph of young Brooklynites lounging riverside as the Twin Towers burn. With wit and formal precision, filmmaker Ricky D’Ambrose (Notes from an Appearance) methodically works through the political implications of this scenario in a work that mixes film-set comedy with commentary on the slippery ways in which differing types of media ingest and adapt scenarios of historical trauma.

The film screened last Fall at the New York Film Festival and is appearing here online for the first time for one week only. (D’Ambrose, one of Filmmaker‘s 25 New Faces, is, in addition to being a filmmaker, is a skilled graphic designer, and the meanings conveyed by typography and graphics are subjects in his film; read here his article from our print issue on how he’s incorporated graphic design into his film.)