BEIJING, March 31 -- "UNITED 93," a film dramatization of the events on the hijacked plane that crashed in Pennsylvania, the United States, on Sept. 11, 2001, will have its world premiere at a New York film festival in April.

    "¡®United 93' recreates the doomed trip in actual time, from takeoff to hijacking to the realization by those onboard that their plane was part of a coordinated attack unfolding on the ground beneath them," organizers of the Tribeca Film Festival said Wednesday.

    The festival was founded by actor Robert De Niro in 2002 to help revitalize lower Manhattan after the Sept. 11 attacks.

    Opening films in previous years have been comedies such as ¡°About a Boy¡± and ¡°Down with Love¡± as well as the thriller ¡°The Interpreter¡± last year. This year¡¯s choice of ¡°United 93¡± as the opening film returns the focus to Tribeca¡¯s roots.

    ¡°The festival was basically created eight months after 9/11 and it was to give our neighborhood something to look forward to and to help the renewal, and to do that you need to laugh,¡± the festival¡¯s co-founder Jane Rosenthal said.

    ¡°We found ourselves for several years saying we need a comedy. In year five, we need to remember,¡± she said.

    Written and directed by Paul Greengrass, director of ¡°The Bourne Supremacy,¡± the film is billed as a drama about the passengers, crew, their families on the ground and the flight controllers who watched as events unfold on the fourth airline hijacked Sept. 11, 2001.

    Some of the relatives of those who died on United 93 are expected to attend the premiere in New York on April 25, the first night of the festival which runs until May 7.

    The films in competition at the festival include several with political themes, particularly related to the Middle East and the war in Iraq.

(Source: Shenzhen Daily/Agencies)