Parallel Lines

Nina Davenport’s apartment used to look out on the Twin Towers. From her window, she could have seen the towers collapse and the hospital crew waiting in her street for wounded people that never arrived. But Davenport was working in San Diego, California at the time. Two months later, her stint there is finished. She is not ready to face Manhattan yet and decides to cover the distance by car. She begins a six-week trip across the United States. Single-handedly, she films her journey and interviews compatriots she meets en route: a striking number of solitary individuals and people who struggle to scrape a living. A truck driver only heard the news four days later. She encounters patriots, but also people to whom it all seems very remote. One or two people strike a more critical note. She passes places that play a role in history or for the identity of her country: the Grand Canyon, Texas, the National Atomic Museum, Waco, Oklahoma. While the motorway whizzes by, her voice-over explains what all these meetings and conversations bring her. Eventually, she visits the places that recently also became part of American history: the place where Flight 93 crashed, Washington and... New York.