Controversial director Oliver Stone has insisted that his upcoming World Trade Centre is a sincere attempt to depict the human aspect of 9/11, rather than a political commentary on the terrorist attack.
The director, well known for his politically confrontational films, including the conspiracy-theorising JFK, is not jumping on a soap box this time around.
"Is America ready for 9/11? Is America ready for gay sex? I don't know," he said, alluding to Oscar frontrunner Brokeback Mountain. "I'm not in the business of knowing when America's ready. You hope for the best.
"We just finished shooting two weeks ago," he continued. "It's a very simple, austere film in many ways, a technical attempt to be realistic about what happened in that building, to really show it as it is, feel it as it is."
Nicolas Cage stars in the film as one of two real-life Port Authority policemen, who lay trapped for a day in the wreckage of the twin towers.
"It's truly a 24-hour document of these men's story," said Stone, while discussing his career at the Bangkok International Film Festival. "They survived under extraordinary circumstances. It's about their rescue, and their families at home, basically; their lives and relationships. I was curious about how mentally they made it, under those conditions."
Making the film gave the cast and crew a grim, if superficial sense, of what it must have been like for the real survivors of the attack. "I've had a cough in my chest for six weeks now, because the last four weeks of shooting was all smoke. It was horrible. All dark holes and smoke."
Stone seems to have become weary with the reaction to some of his earlier films and to his reputation for being outspoken. But he couldn't help jumping to the defence of JFK, which was vilified by the political right in the States.
"They wouldn't hate it so much if it was boring. But it was good," he said. "The big wrap on me is that I brainwash the young. That's ridiculous, because they don't even know history to begin with. How can you brainwash a moron?
"But at least after the film [some people] started getting involved, they were asking 'what is our history?' That is the supreme sign of the film's success."
Thailand (for the geographically inept among you, this is where Bangkok is) was the setting for Stone's 1993 film, Heaven and Earth. "I love this region. And I've seen some very fine films here. In fact, they did the first Brokeback Mountain - Tears of the Black Tiger."