On Aug. 7, 1974, the self-assured audacious Philippe Petit proved his courage while walking a secretly rigged wire between the World Trade Center towers in New York City, dazzling the dwellers, inflaming authorities, causing controversy and gaining national fame.  

After no less than 34 years, a spellbinding documentary film dealing with his performance was released, winning awards at the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival, the World Cinema Jury and Audience, as well as at the Sundance Film festival 2008.

UK director James Marsh was the one who chronicled the gripping “Man on Fire,” after the 58-year-old French high wire artist declined the myriad of offers from filmmakers, who were drawn by the immense news coverage and public appreciation of Petit’s act. "I wanted at least collaboration, you know? And that didn't happen until I met James Marsh," said Petit in an interview during one of his latest visits to Los Angeles.

The compelling documentary, which takes its name from the report filed after the Frenchman’s arrest, plunges into the 45-minute walk between the still-unfinished World Trade Center towers. Armed with hundreds of pounds of equipment, a scatterbrained plan and an astonishing amount of hubris, Petit and his accomplices head to the tops of the quarter-mile-high twin towers, using a 450-pound cable to perform the illegal walk.

When Petit began to plan how he and his crew would infiltrate the World Trade Center, he had already done high-wire stunts at Notre Dame Cathedral and the Sydney Harbor Bridge. But "the artistic crime of the century" was by far the most risky the “tightrope dancer” (as a police sergeant called him) had ever attempted.