Newshost: 
Hello, and welcome to BBC News interactive.  My name is Paul 
Reynolds and with me in the studio I have Gedeon and Jules 
Naudet, the French brothers who made the extraordinary 
documentary 9/11 that’s just been shown on BBC Television.  
Jules and Gideon had set out to make a film about a rookie New 
York fire-fighter.  As the brothers say in the film, they 
wanted to record a boy becoming a man.  They ended up 
witnessing and recording the attack on the World Trade Center 
and its immediate aftermath.  

Thanks very much for joining me, Jules and Gedeon.  Let me 
start with you, Jules.  It’s a year on now, and here you are 
still talking about this film of that experience.  How 
difficult is it for you still to be doing that?

Jules Naudet: 
It’s not easy but in a way, I think for us, working on it for 
the past year has been a way to try to deal with it, to digest 
what has happened to us personally.  Some time I wonder, you 
know, if it’s a way to really deal with it and sometimes I 
wonder if tomorrow, the 12th, might be now that we can really 
sit down and take the time to understand what has happened. 

Paul Reynolds: 
Gedeon, has it affected you very deeply, this whole, last 12 
months?

Gedeon Naudet: 
Yes, of course.  I think it affected everybody. But the fact 
that we had to work on those images every single day until just 
a month ago, I don’t know if it’s one way to relive it and has 
somehow made it easier to digest what has happened to us. Or 
now that we can finally put this behind us, is it going to be 
the time for us to reflect on it, when we will truly realise 
what has happened to us and to everybody.

Paul Reynolds: 
Now what about the effect of this film on the relatives - the 
loved ones, the victims - because at the time it went out in 
the United States, which was six months after the event, there 
was some discussions to the effect on the relatives?  What in 
fact was the reaction of the relatives? 

Gedeon Naudet: 
There was a very big controversy in fact before the first 
airing on CBS, March 10th, because there was this rumour going 
around the country that the footage that Jules and I and James 
had shot was absolutely horrible and that we had filmed carnage 
and body parts, and people dying in front of our cameras, which 
is absolutely not what we did and refused to do from the very 
beginning.  

So everybody was very much afraid of what they were expecting 
to see and of course this controversy disappeared on the next 
day when people had seen this documentary and most of the 
families called us to thank us.  

It was a priority for us to show the families of the firemen 
the truth at the World Trade Center - those 73 firemen who had 
died on that morning.  It was very important for us to show to 
their families this footage before anybody would see it, before 
it would be aired on television.  And it was a very long and 
hard process to recognise everybody on Jules’ footage but we 
finally got all the names together and contacted the families 
and then sent them a tape and they all thanked us because in a 
way it was seeing their loved one before the last moment.  But 
not panicking, not in fear, but doing this job that they always 
loved to do – with this face of courage and I believe it made 
those families feel a bit better.

Paul Reynolds: 
Well, let’s go back to the beginning of this because Jules was 
out with Fire Chief Pfeiffer and some of his men attending a 
routine suspected gas leak near to the twin towers.  

[Film clip]

Jules, Fire Chief Pfeiffer there says, he was the first to 
report the attack on the Tower, he said that he knew it wasn’t 
an accident.  Did you immediately know this was something more 
than an accident?

Jules Naudet: 
Yes, like 99.9 per cent of the people, I was looking and at 
first not even believing what I was seeing, and what a tragic 
accident. But Chief Pfeiffer being a chief and having a very 
analytical mind, when he saw for these three seconds the plane, 
as we just looked, my God, where is it going?  Him, it was, ok, 
the plane, there is no smoke coming out of it, it doesn’t 
appear to be wobbling or having any problems flying and it’s 
heading straight to the Towers, so he made the deduction very 
quickly.  For us, it was, my God, an accident. 

Paul Reynolds: 
It was a very instinctive moment, there when you actually 
captured the image but it must have been a very difficult 
moment because you had presumably heard the sound but you 
hadn’t seen the plane because there was a building in between.  
What did you think - were you pleased at getting the image, at 
least?

Jules Naudet: 
I remember actually filming the fire-fighters and I had my 
camera like this filming them and then when we heard the plane 
I looked up and I had time to see the plane going in between 
two buildings and I saw immediately, I could even make out 
American Airlines on it, because it was that close.  And then 
just turning the camera around and - I don’t know if you can 
use the word pleased to film anything quite like that.  I 
actually just discovered much later on that day that, yes, I 
had filmed it. 

Paul Reynolds: 
Because in fact this was one of the first things you say to 
Gedeon later on when you meet him, that you got the shot that 
really counted.

Jules Naudet: 
Well, it was, I think I was in such a state of shock just 
finding him again, and in a way I was almost, I had just got 
the camera two weeks before so I was training and I was getting 
used to it, you know, you don’t know how your mind works.  I 
kept filming, like, I did what you told me to do, you know, I 
filmed and I did my job.

Paul Reynolds: 
Now to pick up on something Gedeon was mentioning earlier about 
the delicacy with which you filmed some of this because when 
you go into the Tower with Chief Pfeiffer I believe you 
actually saw with your eyes a woman on fire, because some fuel 
had come down the elevator, the lift shaft, but the camera 
doesn’t show this.  You didn’t even film this, did you? 

Jules Naudet: 
Never, never, I remember that’s just the first, that day, the 
first time I would be confronted by these horrible images of 
death. As I entered the building, following Chief Pfeiffer, I 
hear a scream on my right so I just glanced and unfortunately 
see that horrible image of these two people who are still alive, 
still moving but completely engulfed in flame and are dying in 
front of my own eyes.  And the image was so horrible, so 
traumatising in a way that I regretted immediately and said why 
did I even see that, it was not something to film.  I think 
there is some kind of respect that should be shown in death and 
that kind of auto-censorship we did it for the rest of the day 
and the weeks to come so we always shied away from showing this. 

Paul Reynolds: 
Gedeon, was there anything you had to leave out which was too 
awful to show in the final version of this film?

Gedeon Naudet: 
No, there is absolutely never anything that we filmed that we 
knew we couldn’t put on television - nothing that we had filmed. 
We never filmed anybody dying up there in front of us.  We 
always refused.

Paul Reynolds: 
But one of the things you do hear in the film, Jules, is the 
sound of what you say are bodies falling, of people who had 
either fallen or jumped from the upper floors and that is a 
tremendously dramatic moment.  Were you aware at the time that 
this was what that noise probably was? 

Jules Naudet: 
At first absolutely not.  I guest like everyone I heard this 
huge sound, it almost sounded like a car that was dropped from 
very high up.  And first instinct is it’s a piece of the debris, 
a piece of the building is falling down.  And then, first one, 
second one, third one, and then I hear a fire-fighter behind me, 
says, ok, we’ve got jumpers.  And, knowing the expression, I 
realise, ok, this is actually a person I’m hearing, who’s dying 
as I hear the sound and it was constant.  It was every 40 or 50 
seconds, it was happening.  And the same thing as the images of 
the person who was engulfed by flames, I unfortunately made the 
mistake of even looking at it, and that’s not something that 
brings anything. 

Paul Reynolds: 
Ok, well our next clips shows just how much personal danger 
they and the fire-fighters were in.  Here, they are inside 
Tower 1 as Tower 2 collapses.  

[Film clip]

Jules, did you actually know that that was Tower 2 collapsing 
at that moment? 

Jules Naudet: 
No, never at all.  Never at any point even when we came outside, 
we still had no idea that what we heard, that noise, this 
debris, was that tower falling.  No.  Even when we got out, the 
first time we knew that both towers had come down was after 
both of them had come down. 

Paul Reynolds: 
One of the things that came out so vividly in that sequence was 
how little the fire-fighters actually knew, and since then, of 
course, there’s been a full report on the difficult 
communications - radio didn’t seem to be working, they didn’t 
have anyone to talk to, they didn’t seem even to have a 
transistor radio to hear the news of what was going on.  Was it 
chaos in there?  What was the mood?

Jules Naudet: 
It was absolutely not chaos, actually.  It was an operation, 
they deal with these high rise fires a lot of times - never on 
this magnitude, but they have plans.  Their plan is in three 
parts.  One, evacuate everyone under the fire, which they did.  
Twenty-five thousand people, 99 per cent of the people under 
the fire floors were evacuated by the fire-fighters.  Second 
part is to arrive under the fire floors and to keep it from 
spreading down, kind of push it up, in a way.  And the third 
part was to try to break through one of the stairs to be able 
to go up above the fire and start getting people out.  But 
there was no time for that.  

Now in terms of the radio, fire-fighters were hearing, at some 
point with difficulty, but it’s also because there has never 
been so many fire-fighters in one place.  Plus the fact that 
the repeater system in the Trade Center as destroyed.  The cars 
of the battalion chiefs were parked all around the towers and, 
with debris falling on them, these are antennas.  So I think 
there were a lot of factors that contributed to the fact that, 
as well as having the news at a fire operation, you don’t have 
the news because it’s not possible.

Paul Reynolds: 
Was there any consideration given to the possibility that the 
building might collapse and therefore they should not be 
sending fire-fighters up into this building? 

Jules Naudet: 
Never for one moment did we ever think, or was anyone thinking, 
these towers might come down.  Never even came into our minds.  
I remember seeing it in the eyes of the fire-fighters, they 
were confident.  This is our job, we do it every day, this is 
going to be a long and tough fire, but we’ll put it out. 

Paul Reynolds: 
Gedeon, you were outside at this stage, weren’t you?  You saw 
the building collapse.  Did you know that Jules was in the 
lobby of the other building? 

Gedeon Naudet: 
It was a total nightmare because I was back at the firehouse 
watching the television inside the firehouse, the first tower 
collapsing, live, like most of the world saw it live, and I 
knew that Jules was there.  I was not sure in which tower, but 
right where I imagined that he was in this tower and that I 
could have lost him at that very moment looking at the 
television.  Fortunately, three firemen arrived at that moment 
from their home and I asked if I could go with them in their 
truck. They were going to the World Trade Centre to help their 
friends, and I needed to find Jules.  To wait at the firehouse 
was not an option.  We arrived there, and what is incredible, 
is that I arrived at the World Trade Center as Jules is coming 
out from the World Trade Center.

Paul Reynolds: 
But you didn’t see him at that stage? 

Gedeon Naudet: 
No, and in fact we just realised just a few weeks after that we 
were just 250 metres apart, he was looking for me and I was 
looking for him and we were just about not even 200 metres from 
the tower. 

Paul Reynolds: 
Did you know, Jules, that Gedeon was in the immediate area or 
were you even able to think of him?

Jules Naudet: 
I was convinced he was in the tower actually.  Because that 
morning when we went to the gas leak, I thought, OK, he jumped 
in the truck with Tony and James and when the plane had hit he 
had responded also, but he was in a different car than I was, 
he was in the fire truck and I was in the battalion car.  When 
we arrived at the tower I was sure he had run up immediately 
with the guys.  So for me when the North Tower came down, as 
far as I knew Gedeon was in there. 

Paul Reynolds: 
Was there any moment when you thought this is too much, I must 
just get out of here?

Jules Naudet: 
Yes, but in a way I think that’s the reason we kept filming.  
It was almost like a shield, you know.  Our minds told us, keep 
doing something, keep busy and to have that distance of looking 
through that small screen on the side, it’s almost like it’s 
not happening to you.  You’re just a witness.  It puts a 
distance.  It was kind of a defence mechanism.  But we knew 
that the moment we would turn off that camera and put it down, 
hear the panic, the terror, the horror would really sink in and 
we would break down.

Paul Reynolds: 
There was one sequence where you showed people being evacuated 
from the building.  They seem quite calm and quiet.  Was that a 
general reaction? 

Jules Naudet: 
It was.  I didn’t see anyone panicking.  I think it came from 
two factors.  One, since the ’93 bombing there had been about 
once or twice a year a drill to evacuate everyone with the 
fire-fighters from the neighbourhood actually.  And the second 
thing is these people as they were coming down, the sight of 
fire-fighters going up, and grabbing them from the floors, and 
saying ok, it’s time to go down.  That’s why, you know, 25,000 
people survived this because they were calm and there was no 
stampede, no nothing.  It’s horrible, but you know, almost 
3,000 people died, it could have been even more but thanks to 
the fire-fighters, at the cost of their own lives, they saved 
so many.

Paul Reynolds: 
Our next clip shows Chief Pfeiffer issuing the order to get out 
of the remaining tower.  

[Film clip]

Now that sequence, you’re still inside the tower then you come 
out onto the street.  

Jules Naudet: 
Only a few minutes before that Chief Pfeiffer gave an order 
about 20 seconds after the South Tower collapsed, he gives a 
very clear order which is - all units in Tower 1 evacuate the 
building.  And he doesn’t know the South Tower has collapsed 
beforehand.   Something is wrong, let’s get everybody out. 

Paul Reynolds: 
But did that signal reach the people - the fire-fighters in the 
building? 

Jules Naudet: 
Yes, because I know that I heard it being repeated.  I know it 
was repeated by another battalion chief who I talked to later 
on and even though the fire-fighters from our company heard it, 
so it saved a lot of lives, giving it so soon it was able to. 

Paul Reynolds: 
And was it true that all the fire-fighters from the fire 
station, firehouse you were filming escaped?

Jules Naudet: 
Yes, all of them came back alive. 

Paul Reynolds: 
And how many had been in the building? 

Gedeon Naudet: 
About 15 - that’s the most incredible thing. The 15 are the 
first to go in with Chief Pfeiffer and those 15 are the last 
ones to get out and if they made it out it is because they 
heard of course when they were above the 32nd floor going up, 
the call, the evacuation call from Chief Pfeiffer, they started 
to go down.  And on the third floor they met Chief Pfeiffer’s 
brother, who redirected them to another exit because the one 
that they were going to take was way too dangerous and they 
would have died in fact.  So Chief Pfeiffer’s brother stayed 
and never made it, but saved also so many other firemen. 

Paul Reynolds: 
How high in the building was he?

Gedeon Naudet: 
He was on the third or fourth floor. 

Jules Naudet: 
He had heard also the order and went back down.  His company 
had left and he had told them, he was the officer, I’ll stay 
behind, I want to inform all the fire-fighters to use that 
quicker exit. 

Paul Reynolds: 
But the message presumably didn’t get to all the fire-fighters 
in the building?

Jules Naudet: 
Apparently, some didn’t hear it, others, as we spoke to a lot 
of fire-fighters from inside the towers, a lot of them were 
waiting at certain floors, waiting for the rest of their 
company.  They said, ok, I’ll take a rest, or maybe the chief, 
you know, maybe it’s just a precaution and let’s wait a bit and 
in two minutes they might tell us to go back up.  I think it 
was some didn’t hear it, but I think most of it was due to 
simply either they were too far up, or the fact that they were 
waiting for more and thought they had time.  

Paul Reynolds: 
What has been the reaction among the fire-fighters to the 
assessment of the operation – the radios, as we’ve talked about?  
Have they felt that they could have done anything more, for 
example, or they should not have done so much?

Naudet: 
I think you will have to ask a fire-fighter. But in my opinion, 
from what one heard, for them they are trying to concentrate on 
the fact that they saved every one they were to save, which 
means these 25,000.

In terms of what should have been done – it’s easy now after it 
happened to try to imagine – of course there should be changes. 
But I think from the lives they saved there - they’re proud of 
it. 

Paul Reynolds: 
Jules managed to get out but it didn’t end there. Here in our 
next clip, we see just how narrowly he escaped.  

[Film clip]

Jules, how long did that dust storm envelop you for? 

Jules Naudet: 
I would say for about – it felt like almost half and hour – but 
I would say about five, six minutes. Fortunately the wind was 
blowing in the opposite direction. 

Paul Reynolds: 
And did you think at any stage you might not survive that? 

Jules Naudet: 
Oh, yes. Once again, when you hear that sound, you pretty much 
know it’s death coming to get you in a way. And then once it 
passes then you have the dust and you’re starting to think ok, 
now I’m going to die of asphyxia because I can’t breathe and 
then it passes and you say well ok, I’m still alive. 

Paul Reynolds: 
Gedeon, you were nearby also filming the collapse of the 
building. 

Gedeon Naudet: 
Yes, again not knowing that we’re just 200 metres apart. I 
remember looking up like that and it’s like everything went in 
slow motion – I saw the tower collapsing. I just, without 
thinking, jumped into a fire truck that was behind me. I 
remember an FBI agent jumped also in it. We didn’t have the 
time to close the door – everything started to fall and the 
windows were breaking and the truck was moving and shaking and 
being pounded. I know that two guys who took refuge underneath 
the fire truck in the back, got crushed because it was hit by a 
big piece. But it felt like it lasted for at least five – ten 
minutes and you were just waiting for this big piece to crush 
you – just waiting there. 

Paul Reynolds:
When did you and where did you meet up again you two? 

Jules Naudet: 
It was about 1.30 in the afternoon, after both of us, I guess, 
thinking almost for sure that the other was dead. It was an 
amazing moment when you believe that your brother is dead and 
suddenly he is right there in front of you. You go from extreme 
sadness to extreme joy. 

Gideon Naudet: 
I just couldn’t believe it. I was waiting for Jules for almost 
three hours at the firehouse and all the firemen were coming 
back one by one. And every time asking them – have you seen 
Jules? – and every time the same answer and the same look – 
saying sorry. And then suddenly one of them tells me, are you 
crazy, he’s just behind you – look – and I looked and there he 
was. For one second you think you’ve lost your brother and the 
next one he appears in front of you

Paul Reynolds: 
Now you’ve been back to the firehouse presumably. How have the 
fire-fighters coped with the aftermath of all this and what is 
their current morale? 

Jules Naudet: 
I think they have a tremendous amount of survival guilt. It’s 
not easy. They start asking themselves, why me and not the guy 
next to me who had four or five children? It’s unfortunate in 
these moments that the two questions you should not ask is what 
if and why because these are the ones you can never have an 
answer to and are the ones that come back a lot.

I think the fire-fighters are a very tight community – they’re 
really a family, a brotherhood – to be able at least to have 
each other and that’s how, I think, most of the fire-fighters 
dealt with it. In New York, there’s that sense of community, 
that they work together, they had each other and they needed 
each other to be able to survive this – talking to each other 
and taking the time. Still now, whenever we go back to the 
firehouse, we sit down around the table and everyone says – how 
you doing, do you sleep good, the 11th is arriving, how do your 
families find it? etc. So that’s their therapy. 

Paul Reynolds: 
Are they all still fire-fighters or have any left? 

Gedeon Naudet: 
A few have retired, the fire-fighters who had 20, 25, 30 years 
who have accomplished what they wanted to. When they look at 
their families and their grandkids and their wives and said, 
maybe now will be a good time. But it’s mostly it’s these 
veterans. 

Paul Reynolds: 
And Chief Pfeiffer? 

Gedeon Naudet: 
Chief Pfeiffer has been promoted. He had taken a test to become 
deputy-chief a year-and-a-half ago and was promoted to deputy-
chief which is good and he loves being a fire-fighter. That’s 
what he does for a living and what he’s very proud to do. 

Paul Reynolds: 
And of course your rookie fireman became a man, I guess you’d 
have to say, wouldn’t you? 

Gideon Naudet: 
We really saw that in the weeks that followed – everything 
changed about him, even his voice. Now he’s not at the 
firehouse any more. He joined an elite group of the fire 
department which is for hazardous materials. In fact it is 
those special fireman that are sent whenever there is a 
terrorist attack or any kind of chemical or biological problem. 
He’s an incredible guy. 

Paul Reynolds: 
What about you two? You were talking earlier about this being a 
moment to pause and reflect. Are you going to move on and do 
other films and other stories? 

Jules Naudet: 
I think more than ever. We’ve always been interested in showing 
positive stories and inspiring stories whether it is love 
stories or friendship stories. But I think we are even more 
committed to it now – to show something good, something 
positive. 

Paul Reynolds: 
Any particular plans or ideas? 

Gedeon Naudet: 
Actually yes but it’s like Murphy’s law – everything is going 
to go wrong – we became very superstitious. 

Jules Naudet: 
We spent too much time in the firehouse – that’s what happens, 
you become very superstitious. 

Jules Naudet: 
So until the first day of production…

Paul Reynolds: 
Thank you both very much, Jules and Gedeon Naudet for talking 
to us about this – I have to say – remarkable film which you 
have made – an admirable film – and all the problems you had 
and the mature which in which you did it. Thank you for 
watching. Don’t forget this interview and the information about 
the fire-fighters fund is also available on our website 
www.bbc.co.uk/September 11. That website address will come up 
on your screens in just a moment. But from me, Paul Reynolds, 
goodbye.