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A Few Days After

It’s been almost ten years since I've watched the images I captured on that tragic morning. I’ve tried many times over the past decade to screen my footage and each time I was unable to take the tapes marked 9/11/2001 out of their cases. That nauseous feeling would develop in the pit of my stomach each time. Editing my film this year helped me face that horrible day, reliving the sound of the jet engines blasting over my bedroom. It brought back the memory of the windows of my home vibrating from the impact of the ball of fire that erupted from those buildings. It brought back the memory of the sound of people screaming on Church Street, seconds after Tower Two came tumbling down. When we were allowed to return to our neighborhood, the Tribeca we once knew, no more. This film is dedicated to my neighborhood and the many who perished on that horrible day.

  • Lance Cain
    Director
    Paul McCartney in Red Square, Vice, My last Day Without You, New York Verite
  • Project Type:
    Documentary, Experimental
  • Runtime:
    10 minutes
  • Production Budget:
    2,000 USD
  • Country of Origin:
    United States
  • Country of Filming:
    United States
  • Language:
    English
  • Shooting Format:
    Digital
  • Aspect Ratio:
    16:9
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    No
  • Student Project:
    No
  • Dada Post in Berlin, Germany
Director Biography - Lance Cain

Lance Cain is a primetime Emmy award winning editor, filmmaker and photographer with almost twenty years of experience. His latest directorial project, The Invisible Ones, tells the story of two schools on the top of Mount Sarazin in Haiti, celebrating a day art and music with a few artist from Brooklyn, New York. His art documentary film A Few Days After debuted at the 2011 Ghost Shadows art exhibition at Dada Post Gallery in Berlin, Germany. The title refers to the shadows of the World Trade Center, which fell across the Tribeca neighborhood where Lance and six other artists lived and worked prior and during that tragic day. His film and installation explores his neighborhood at ground zero just days after the 9/11 attacks.

Lance began his career as a commercial editor at Version-2 Editorial and then a director with Third Element Productions and JP Studios.  During this period he produced and directed dozens of commercial spots and music videos for Capital, Select and Tommy Boy Records.  In the early 2000s Cain produced online digital content, joining forces with Time Inc. Studios, where he produced and edited doc webisodes for L’Oreal, Essence Magazine and WebMD. He also continued acting as a creative director for an array of companies that included; Dogmatic Productions, TAG Creative, The Sundance Channel and MH3 Productions. 

In 2005, Cain won a Emmy for Outstanding Editing in a Comedy, Music or Miniseries for the A&E documentary film Paul McCartney In Red Square. In 2008 Cain co-created and directed the experimental web series New York Verité, a mélange of downtown theater, cinema verite and reality TV, digitally filmed before a live studio audience.

In 2010 Cain edited the romantic feature film, ”My Last Day Without You” starring Nicole Beharie and Ken Duken, and directed by Stefen Schafer for Circala Filmworks. Cain’s first major photo exhibition “The Corner Of Haarlemmerstraat and Saint Germain Blvd” (2009) opened at the Soho Creative Gallery, and later at Axis Gallery in New York City. The show featured a collection of photos juxtaposing images of Parisian cafés with Amsterdam coffee-shops.

His most recent photo exhibit is part of his series The Last days Of Tribeca. The Knitting Factory was the last live music venue to close in Tribeca and Cain captures the last hip hop night, featuring musical artists Rakim, Talib Kwali and Quest Love.

Cain is presently in pre-production for his new documentary Le Masion Baldwin, a film on acclaimed writer James Baldwin’s last seventeen years of his life in Saint Paul de Vence, France.

Lance continues to produce and direct his independent films while freelancing in television as an editor and story-producer for companies like HBO, Vice, PBS Frontline and A&E. He’s a adjunct professor and thesis advisor at his alma mater, The School of Visual Arts in New York City.

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Director Statement

I lived in Tribeca for 15 years and the events on 9/11 was upfront and very personally to me. It took over ten years for me to finally view the images I captured after returning to my studio and the neighborhood days after. On the ten year anniversary, I was asked by a former Tribeca artist who afterwards opened a gallery in Germany to come to Berlin to create an installation and screen what I recorded. The result is my 11 minute short and experimental film, A Few Days After. This was the only time I screened the film, and now that we are at the 20th anniversary of this tragic day, I feel it's time to present it to the world again.

Lance Cain