There are years that pass uneventfully, and then days that change the course of history. From September 2002 to May 2003, filmmakers Gabriele Zamparini and Lorenzo Meccoli met with intellectuals, journalists, university professors, writers, historians, political analysts, international observers, human rights organizations, civil rights workers, religious leaders, peace and anti-war activists, asking questions to understand the era in which we are living and to try to put together the many pieces of a complicated puzzle. The picture that comes alive is - to paraphrase James Baldwin - "longer, larger, more various, more beautiful, and more terrible than anything anyone has ever said about it".
"XXI CENTURY", a documentary film in seven parts, tries to give some perspective and context to the events that have transpired in the wake of the 2000 presidential elections and September 11th, 2001 and to show how they relate to decisions and transgressions of the past. It looks at problems from a new angle in the belief that, in Albert Einstein's words 'the mere formulation of a problem is far more often essential than its solution.'
With Leslie Cagan, Noam Chomsky, Ramsey Clark, Angela Davis, Curt Goering, Amy Goodman, Arno J. Mayer, Greg Palast, Katha Pollitt, Scott Ritter, Danny Schechter, Pete Seeger, Gore Vidal, Edmund White, Howard Zinn, Amy Goodman, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows, with concerned citizens and celebrities speaking out at the massive demonstrations in New York and DC. Listening now to their viewpoints, expressed in the run up to the war, it's remarkable how prescient these experts and laypeople were.