Director James Bluemel tells the story of notorious 9/11 hoaxer Tania Head, who claimed not only to have survived the disaster but also lost her husband. Interviewing real survivors, journalists and the parents of the man who allegedly saved her life, Bluemel pieces together the events leading to her unmasking.
She Wanted Fame, Not Money
Embroiled in a tragedy which touched so many lives, it would have been easy to simply paint Head as the standard opportunist, somebody who seeks to exploit the pain of others. Certainly many of those interviewed in the documentary expressed hurt and bewilderment at her behaviour; how she could claim to share their pain when she had not even been in New York at the time? But Bluemel makes two crucial points: Head herself made no money from her actions, and even after she was exposed as a fraud the real survivors still acknowledged how much they had benefited from her tireless campaigning.
Tania Head was in fact Alicia Esteve Head, a member of a well-to-do Spanish family which had been involved in a fraud scandal 10 years earlier. According to a Spanish reporter, Alicia never recovered from the shame of her father and brother being sent to jail, and had constantly searched for ways to feel accepted as part of a group.
Head had apparently been adept at spinning stories even then in an attempt to gain sympathy, including a car crash involving her boyfriend and a riding accident at a local polo club. Far from being at the World Trade Centre on September 11th, she was actually enrolling at a business school in Barcelona. She then crossed the Atlantic and over five years built a completely new identity.
Unlike so many previous stories and documentaries on the World Trade Centre tragedy, “The 9/11 Faker” centers around a group of people who were also caught up in the disaster but received little attention or sympathy – the survivors. Two years after 9/11, those who managed to get out alive still felt isolated and traumatized. A Survivors Network was formed, holding meetings and gradually opening online forums for people to share their pain and experiences.
At Last She Was Accepted
For someone so desperate to belong, a group like this must have drawn Head like a moth to a flame. When she arrived on the scene Head threw herself into the Network, ensuring the group received official status as well as state funding. Most importantly, she enabled group members to finally visit Ground Zero, something which had until 2003 been denied by local authorities. Her commitment to the cause was total, and she willingly became the public figurehead for the Network. No-one thought to question details of her story despite the occasional inconsistency - Head told some people she had lost her husband, others her fiancé.
So was her love of publicity her ultimate undoing? If she had not constantly been in the public eye, would the New York Times have started questioning her authenticity and published the story which exposed her as a fraud? As one Network member noted, “She didn’t have to lie. She could have done those things without labelling herself something she wasn’t.”
Although the documentary never answers the ultimate question – why Tania Head spent five years of her life living a lie and deceiving millions of people – one thing becomes crystal clear. Without exception, people believed her simply because they had no reason not to. With an understated narration by Mark Strong, “The 9/11 Faker” provides a balanced investigation into of one of America’s most vilified women.
