Tears and reflection at 9/11 film premiere

Lewis Alsamari in United 93
Restricted admission ... Lewis Alsamari, pictured, was denied a visa to attend the United 93 premiere
The first feature film to address the events of 9/11 opened in New York yesterday, leaving some audience members sobbing and the rest in shocked silence.

United 93, by the British director Paul Greengrass, opened the Tribeca Film Festival, and the evening began like any other premiere, with a red-carpet procession of celebrities - including Robert De Niro, Steve Buscemi and Gabriel Byrne - and attendant TV cameras and gawking passersby.

But joining them in the 1,600-capacity Ziegfeld Theatre was a group who gave the event a more sombre tone: about 90 people who lost family members when a United Airlines plane crashed into a field in Somerset County, Pennsylvania, killing all 33 passengers and seven crew members, as well as the four hijackers. The relatives were given a standing ovation after Jane Rosenthal, co-founder of the festival with De Niro, said she hoped the film could be part of a "healing journey".

"This movie tells the story with so much dignity," said Gordon Felt, who lost his brother Ed. He said he was "speechless" at the degree to which the film-makers had involved the families, and thanked Universal Pictures for donating 10% of the profits from the film's opening weekend to the fund for a permanent memorial.

The film is a documentary-style re-creation of what Mr Greengrass calls a "believable truth" about what might have happened on the plane and in air-traffic control centres - from the moment a controller hears the first indications of the hijacks to when the Flight 93 passengers storm the cockpit and try to seize control.

It elapses in real time and is based on dialogue derived from improvisation, giving it a claustrophobic and believable feel. Further blurring the distinction between documentary and drama, several of the characters appear as themselves. Flight 93 pilot Jason Dahl is played by JJ Johnson, a United pilot in real life.

Many of the actors were at the premiere, but Lewis Alsamari, the British-based Iraqi actor who plays hijacker Saeed al-Ghamdi, was refused a visa to enter the US. The American embassy in London gave no reason for its decision. He will see the film for the first time at a private screening in the UK in the next few days.

"This movie puts a face on the enemy and demonstrates accurately the extent to which the enemy will go to destroy us," David Beamer, the father of passenger Todd Beamer, told the Guardian before the premiere.

"The enemy doesn't have the word surrender in his dictionary, and we can't have the word retreat in ours."

Patrick Welsh, whose wife, Debbie, was a member of the cabin crew, told the Hollywood Reporter: "You can't run away from the pain. You have to face it. It's a very visceral but remarkable film."

United 93, mostly filmed at Pinewood Studios outside London, opens across America tomorrow - its first real test - and in the UK on June 2.