by Carol Brouillet
The morning of September 11, 2001, Paul Cross was at the White House for part of the post-production work of his film “Follow the Leader,” a documentary about the everyday life of the President of the United States. On September 12th Paul visited the Pentagon. He did not see that the damage to the building nor the debris nor the scene were consistent with the official claim that a Boeing 757 had crashed there. He finished producing “Follow the Leader,” which won an award at the Atlantic City Film Festival for best documentary, and traveled with the film, speaking about it.
Paul has a deep reverence and love for this country and the ideals it proclaims. When the truth of 9/11 hit him, he cried for days. “Severe Visibility,” his latest film, is his response. It tells the story of Major Stanley Kruter (played by Paul Cross) who represents the average American and was injured in the Pentagon attack. The other major character is a foreign journalist who begs Kruter to tell him about what he witnessed from his window during the attack. Paul said he identified with the journalist, who doubts that a commercial 757 airliner actually hit the Pentagon.
I heard about Paul’s film from a mutual banjo-playing friend last July, in 2006. Thrilled that a Hollywood feature 9/11 Truth film was being made, I phoned Paul. We had a friendly conversation. I sent him a copy of my DVD, but though he promised to send me a review copy of his film, for months I heard nothing from him. In April he emailed me:
“I feel like I am in Nazi Germany the way some people in Hollywood are reacting to it. What is everyone so afraid of? Everyone seems to like the film but I have been told by most of the distribution companies that I have approached that they are corporate and therefore don’t want to release a film with so strong a statement.”
The film website http://www.severevisibility.com/ hadn’t been updated since 2006. I called to ask what was going on. Paul said that his film had been rejected at film festivals across the United States. I wasn’t surprised. “Our Own Private Bin Laden,” www.ourownprivatebinladen.com / an award-winning 9/11 Truth documentary by Samira Goetschel, suffered a similar fate in the USA. Independent theaters are few and far between, and they are the only hope of free-lance film-makers whose prospects often depend on the resources of their financial backers.
Last year, Paul was unwilling to tour with the film or answer the questions producers must face. The film will premiere this June in Italy and this July in New York. Paul believes the American people do not wish to hear the message of “Severe Visibility,” but they need to hear it. Crafted by an award-winning screenwriter and producer, this film could move many Americans to begin the journey that almost every American 9/11 truth activist has had to undertake to recognize the evidence that screams that the government story cannot possibly be true.
An archive of the interview with Paul Cross on the Questioning War-Organizing Resistance radio show can be found on the We the People Radio Network at mp3.wtprn.com/Brouillet07.html .
