Robert De Niro Hosts CBS "9/11" Anniversary Show  8/10/06

CBS TO BROADCAST "9/11" TO MARK THE 5TH YEAR ANNIVERSARY OF THE WORLD TRADE CENTER ATTACK

The Multi-Award Winning Program Will Be Updated To Include New Interviews and Footage with Many of the Firefighters Featured In the Original Presentation

As Host, Robert De Niro Brings Us Back To Ground Zero -- Five Years Later

The CBS Television Network and filmmakers Jules and Gedeon Naudet and James Hanlon will update the multiple-award winning program "9/11," which will be broadcast on CBS as a special presentation Sunday, Sept. 10 (8:00-10:00 PM, ET/PT).

The exclusive insider's account of the World Trade Center attack will be re-broadcast for the fifth year anniversary of the attack. The eyewitness story, which has aired twice before on CBS, has new interviews with many of the firefighters who were featured in the original program, discussing how their lives, families and the world have changed in the five years since the tragedy.

Two-time Oscar winner Robert De Niro returns as host of the program, taking us back to Ground Zero five years later.

As with the previous airings, the broadcast of "9/11" will include information throughout the program about how viewers can contribute to the Uniformed Firefighters Association Scholarship Fund to benefit all firefighters' families. Due to the sensitive content and graphic language that appears in parts of the program, the broadcast also will include both audio and visual warnings to viewers, as well as an introduction by De Niro alerting viewers to the content of the program.

CBS and the filmmakers have been honored with multiple awards for "9/11," including a George Foster Peabody Award, Emmy Award for Outstanding Non-Fiction Special, Radio-Television News Directors Association Edward R. Murrow Award and a Writers Guild of America (WGA) Award. The "9/11" presentation, which originally aired six months after the tragedy and again on the one-year anniversary, has been watched by more than 60 million people.

On Sept. 11, the Naudets and Hanlon were in lower Manhattan shooting a documentary on the Engine 7, Ladder 1 firefighters when Jules suddenly heard a roar from above and turned his camera upward. In doing so, he captured the only known video of the first plane striking the World Trade Center.

Camera still rolling, Jules followed the firefighters into the heart of what would soon be known as Ground Zero. Gedeon also rushed to the scene with members of Ladder 1. Over the next several hours, the brothers captured extraordinary video unlike any broadcast since, including 75 minutes of footage from inside the North Tower as the rescue effort was underway and dramatic scenes of escape in the minutes before the building collapsed.

CBS News' Susan Zirinsky remains executive producer of the CBS broadcast, along with Gedeon and Jules Naudet and James Hanlon. The project was originally brought to CBS by Vanity Fair Editor Graydon Carter along with Ben Silverman, CEO of Reveille LLC.

Gedeon and Jules Naudet moved to New York City from Paris in 1989. After attending New York University Film School, the brothers made their first feature, Hope, Gloves and Redemption, about young boxers in Spanish Harlem, which took grand jury honors in 2000 at the New York International Independent Film and Video Festival. Filmmaker James Hanlon -- also a New York City Firefighter for 12 years, retired from the department this year. In May 2001, the New York City Fire Department offered them access to film Duane Street's Engine 7, Ladder 1 (Ladder 1 is one of New York's oldest fire companies, founded in 1772) with the intention of chronicling a new firefighter’s journey up through the ranks. On September 11, their film was changed forever.

Source: CBS Press Release