WILMINGTON, NC (WWAY-TV) \u2013 A film crew on the Cape Fear River is transforming a downtown Wilmington boat dock into what will look like Lower Manhattan for a new short film.<\/p>\n
\u201cOn that day September 11, there was an extraordinary event that happened, it was one of the darkest days of American history,\u201d said Dale Fabrigar.<\/p>\n
Fabrigar is the director of the new film \u201cBoat Life 9\/11\u201d bringing viewers into the largest maritime evacuation in U.S. history.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a story that not a lot of people know about and when I first heard this story I was really blown away about the humanity,\u201d said Fabrigar.<\/p>\n
A fleet of ferries, tugboats, fishing vessels and private boats rescued more than 500,000 from Lower Manhattan.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey called all of the boats in the area and people came and this is a story about one of these people who made the decision to help in that moment,\u201d said Sofia Helin.<\/p>\n
The film stars Helin as \u201cJan\u201d the main character who is a long-time tug boat operator with her daughter.<\/p>\n
\u201cTrying to put myself back to that situation, I\u2019ve had to take it like in chunks because it\u2019s really difficult story, it\u2019s a heartbreaking story,\u201d said Helin.<\/p>\n
\u201cBoat Life 9\/11\u201d is the work of Suzanne DeLaurentiis, if that name sounds familiar, she\u2019s the cousin of the late Dino DeLaurentiis who built the first sound stage in Wilmington in the 1980s.<\/p>\n
DeLaurentis said the majority of the film is shot in Wilmington with some portions in New York.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe had a small window of time when we could do this and we couldn\u2019t have shot everything in New York right now because of the snow and the blizzard,\u201d said DeLaurentiis.<\/p>\n
Fabrigar said the Cape Fear River was the next best option.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe weather is great, the crews here are fantastic and the river just really works for our story and we\u2019re really happy to be here,\u201d Fabrigar said.<\/p>\n
The film is sponsored by The Mendez National Institute of Transplantation Foundation, aiming to bring awareness to the many people who came down with kidney cancer and diseases from breathing in toxins and debris.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s a scene where someone that\u2019s being rescued has a port because they\u2019re going through kidney dialysis,\u201d said DeLaurentiis.<\/p>\n
Fabrigar hopes this film will keep the brave actions of these boat operators from becoming forgotten history.<\/p>\n
\u201cOn that day, it was an excellent, amazing example of humanity, so I think it\u2019s a story that needs to be told and remembered,\u201d said Fabrigar.<\/p>\n
Filming in Wilmington is expected to wrap up on Sunday. The short-form film will be released on Sept. 11 this year on the 25th anniversary of the attacks.\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WILMINGTON, NC (WWAY-TV) \u2013 A film crew on the Cape Fear River is transforming a downtown Wilmington boat…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":154657,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[64068,64069,749,75,84,83,35501,9,24,63,64070,2238],"class_list":["post-154656","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-manhattan","tag-boat-lift-9-11","tag-cape-fear-river","tag-film","tag-manhattan","tag-manhattan-headlines","tag-manhattan-news","tag-movie","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-suzanne-delaurentiis","tag-wilmington"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154656","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=154656"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154656\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/154657"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=154656"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=154656"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=154656"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}