Director Sean Wilsey’s documentary “IX XI” collects the strangest personal 9/11 stories from 12 New Yorkers — a real estate broker ordering everything on the menu and champagne after the first plane hit, a cartoonist, a novelist, a skater who rode the World Trade Center’s famous ledges. It debuted at Tribeca to sold-out screenings, has endorsements from Wim Wenders and Alison Bechdel, and is now screening free around the city at venues connected to the people in it.
Wilsey says the day was “co-opted by so many political forces” into a totemic symbol, talked about “in a sanctimonious way.” His film is the opposite: “really heartbreaking, but it’s also really funny.” The title, pronounced “eye-x-x-eye,” plays on forgetting (IX) and the person he used to be (XI).
- Sept. 8, 8 p.m. — the Glade at Little Island, free.
- Sept. 10, 11, 12, 6 p.m. — Ellie Rines Gallery, Tribeca.
- Sept. 11, all day — Labor Skateshop, Canal Street.
- Sept. 19, 5 p.m. — National September 11 Memorial & Museum, followed by a conversation moderated by Cannon Hersey, grandson of “Hiroshima” author John Hersey.
- Coming soon — Aqua Best Seafood, Astor Place Newsstand, McNally Jackson Books, Night Owl Video.
Catch it before the anniversary crowds arrive: the Little Island and Canal Street dates fall on and around Sept. 11 itself, and every screening is free. A reminder that the day belonged to regular New Yorkers first — and that some of their stories are genuinely absurd.