When 11 film-makers were asked to make a film lasting exactly 11 minutes, nine seconds and one frame - 11'09"01 - the result was inevitably a bit of a curate's egg.

The good parts - Mexican director Inarritu's chilling collage of film of sound and Burkino Faso film-maker Idrissa Ouedraogo's comic sketch - are balanced by some pretty grim ones.

There's Japanese director Shohei Imamura's frankly inpenetrable dramatisation of a poem, and Sean Penn's over-simplistic fable featuring Ernest Borgnine over-acting as only he can.

After sitting through more than two hours of September reactions you actually find yourself thanking the stars above the killers hadn't struck on September 30.

Some of the films - those from Bosnia and Israel - don't even deal with the fateful attack itself but on the significance of that precise date.

British director Ken Loach takes this approach, and comes up with a crude but passionate condemnation of America's involvement in the Chilean coup of September 11, 1970.

Possibly the finest segment is Inarritu's random collection of sounds (phone calls from loved ones) and terrifying footage (bodies hurtling to the ground from the Twin Towers).

Ouedragaogo goes against the serious political grain with a humorous story about a group of young boys who think Osama Bin Laden is living in their town.

Decreeing that the films must be exactly 11 minutes and nine seconds long may be taking things a bit far - a bit too heavy in the symbolism stakes.

There are obvious differing points of view - Israel and Egypt were never going to see eye to eye - but nothing overtly political.

It's an interesting project, but nothing more, and to reach the jewels you have to sit through an awful lot of luvvy vanity projects.

Tim Evans