Documentary filmmakers vow not to cave to ‘censorship’ demands by NYC 9/11 Memorial and Museum

Top officials of the 9/11 Memorial and Museum want to cut 18 scenes they call “defamatory” from an upcoming documentary about the museum’s inner workings — and the documentary’s makers vow not to cave in to their demands.

Steven Rosenbaum and Pamela Yoder, the husband-and-wife directors of “The Outsider,” say the museum hired a white-shoe law firm and has threatened to pressure the film’s distributor if the scenes are not cut.

“About a month ago, the museum sent us this incredibly heavy-handed letter saying they get the right to control it and decide what and how we publish. The complaints that they came back with were so ill-formed and censoring in their framing,” Rosenbaum said.

“The question worth asking is, ‘What do they have to hide?’”

The documentary follows several museum officials through the design and construction of the National September 11 Memorial and Museum at the old World Trade Center site — including Michael Shulan, who worked as the museum’s creative director and is the titular subject in the film.

Shulan first came to public attention after he amassed a huge collection of photos of 9/11 and assembled them into a popular exhibit called “Here is New York” in a SoHo storefront.

Eventually, Shulan and others become disaffected with the controlled and sanitized version of 9/11 history portrayed by the museum. “That was something that became difficult over time,” Shulan says in the film.

The filmmakers had access to the internal workings of the museum from 2008 to 2014 and shot 670 hours of footage in meetings and other settings, of which 83 minutes are on screen.

Though museum officials had to the right to review the film for security issues, its objections have been all about the claim that the film “defames” or “disparages” the “reputation” of the institution and its top officials, including Alice Greenwald, the director and CEO.

One scene the museum wants cut shows officials mulling over what to include in the gift shop.

The filmmakers then cut to a clip of retired Firefighter Jim Riches, who lost his son in the attacks, criticizing the fact that the gift shop even exists.

“We had 59 minutes of that meeting and the tone didn’t change,” Rosenbaum said. “The whole tone of it was exactly what the families feared the most, and I think those fears will be ratified by the film.”

At another point in the film, Shulan and others offer the opinion that the museum represents the “Disneyfication” of 9/11. Museum officials also found that “defamatory.”

The museum also objects to a museum official saying, “Fruit is so much healthier than donuts,” saying it would “damage the reputation of the staff member and the entire team.”

The filmmakers say they then sat in a meeting on the dispute with seven lawyers representing the museum.

In a statement, Lee Cochran, a spokeswoman for the museum, said, “The film looks at the museum through a very specific ideological lens which we do not share. We made clear to the filmmakers that we were disappointed by many of their decisions, which we think are disrespectful toward victims and their families.”

Riches called the documentary “honest and informative.”

“It puts them in a bad light in some ways but a good light in others,” he said. “They don’t like bad press, but the good goes with the bad. You can’t erase history.”

The filmmakers note that visitors can’t take photos inside the museum. “They say there’s copyright issues, but we’re the largest owner of copyright in the building and they never asked us if we wanted that rule,” Rosenbaum said.

In 2009, Rosenbaum and Yoder donated 500 hours of 9/11 video to the museum with the understanding that it would be used for research and public understanding, perhaps as part of a library.

“I remember, crystal clear, sitting with [Greenwald] when there was no museum. I said to her, ‘I think you are going to become the magnetic north for this story.’ And she nodded and talked about a lending library, and none of that turned out to be true,” Rosenbaum said.

“We feel misled. The museum fundamentally censors and controls what people are allowed to say and report and write. ... We never would have made that donation had we known that’s what was going to happen.”

The filmmakers sent a reply to the museum’s demands in mid-May. The museum did not respond. In June, the filmmakers sent a letter saying the movie had been shipped to the distributor and the time to change it has passed.

“They have had plenty of time to review our response,” Rosenbaum said. “Our decision is were going to release the film as broadly and as globally as possible.”

The film is currently slated for release on Aug. 19.

“The museum’s hijacking of history doesn’t have to be the end of the story,” Rosenbaum said. “There’s still an opportunity to invite people into the story and take away all these egregious limitations on research.”