'My Name is Khan' saw the post 9/11 scenario from a Muslim perspective. In fact all films dealing with the post 9/11 conflict - whether 'New York,' 'Kurbaan' or 'Khuda Kay Liye' only showed how Muslims were victimized.
There is no post-9/11. Everything from now until the end of time is post-9/11.
What a lot of the world missed was just how caring New York became post-9/11.
Ultimately, if you look at all my films from 'Bloody Sunday' on, they're steeped in a post-9/11 atmosphere. 'United 93' is directly about 9/11, of course, but every one of the movies deals with paranoia, mistrust, and fear.
In June 2002, I had just finished 'Laurel Canyon' and decided to move back to Los Angeles after nearly a decade in New York. Post-9/11 New York felt different.
You don't want to pretend that 9/11 ended in 2002 with the first anniversary. So how do you frame the post-9/11 world and play a productive role in discussing it?
Post 9/11, so much has changed in New York that it does not give you that homely feeling which it did before.
I think that horror films have a very direct relationship to the time in which they're made. The films that really strike a film with the public are very often reflecting something that everyone, consciously or unconsciously feeling - atomic age, post 9-11, post Iraq war; it's hard to predict what people are going to be afraid of.
I'm dealing with Mexico, I'm dealing with Argentina. We were dealing in this case with Mike Flynn. All this information gets put into The Washington Post and The New York Times, and I'm saying, what's going to happen when I'm dealing on the Middle East? We've got to stop it. That's why it's a criminal penalty.
Thousands of our post-9/11 veterans carry the invisible burden of post-traumatic stress, and there is an overwhelming need to expand the available treatment options.
It means a lot to be back in New York. Particularly since one of the last senior event scheduled in the States was supposed to be here in New York. We were supposed to play in Central Park right after 9-11 and when 9-11 happened obviously things changed.
There were not that many people who were willing to come out and stand up for Muslims or stand up against the abuses of the Bush administration. That was post-9/11, so I think there was a lot of fear at the time about exactly what that meant - were they unpatriotic if they stood up?
'I Am Singh' is about Sikhs, who, despite living in the U.S. for generations, were mistaken for Arabs and Afghans due to their turbans and became victims of racist violence in the aftermath of 9/11. The film takes a look at the discrimination against Sikhs post 9/11.
I'm a New Yorker. I was there during 9/11, and I saw how, not only New York City stopped for a moment, we all took an inhale and exhale at the same time - the world united at that time, and it changed my life. I think millions of people were forever changed.
Given my last position, that I was the first U.S attorney post 9/11 in New Jersey, I understand acutely the pain and sorrow and upset of the family members who lost loved ones that day at the hands of radical Muslim extremists. And their sensitivities and concerns have to be taken into account.
So the premise of 'The Submission' is that there's an anonymous competition to design a 9/11 memorial and it's won by an American Muslim, an architect born and raised in Virginia, and his name is Mohammad Khan.
Sikh is a 500 year old community and they have been living in U.S. for the past 114 years. Yet the Sikhs were mistaken to be Arabs in the post 9/11 scenario and beaten up. Doesn't this sound bizarre? I mean Sikhs and Arabs are as different as chalk and cheese.