 Beginning with the World Trade Center s North Tower afire and billowing dense smoke, and ending on the vast expanse of ash-brown debris the following morning, The First 24 Hours documents "ground zero" in the immediate aftermath of the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001. Shot independently over a 24-hour period, the film is first a witness to the fall of the twin towers, as a line of fire and a buckle in the armature signal imminent collapse. It is then an intimate view of the smoldering monochromatic site and the surrounding solitary streets, the ashen outskirts of New York s financial center, desolate and strewn with debris, the epicenter, a steel moonscape of Dresdenesque remains. People on the site work monotonously, in a fervor, then dazed, trance-like. The images speak for themselves, intentionally devoid of commentary and music.