shortlisted webdocumentary

The Tiananmen Generation

by Marion Urban

Article published on the 2009-08-24 Latest update 2009-08-24 16:06 TU

(Photo: lemonde.fr/tiananmen)

Watch the webdocumentary

The Tiananmen Generation is the story of a photographer returning to a reportage that he made on Tiananmen Square, 20 years ago.

Laurence Bagot and Cécile Cros suggested the return-project to Patrick Zackmann, a Magnum photographer. Bagot was a journalist with the magazine Géo and Cros would work on the web side of the project.

It wasn't difficult to convince him.

He had been one of the first photographers on Tiananmen Square, "I saw Tiananmen become a real Chinese Woodstock," he says.

"Nobody, myself included, expected the tragedy of 4 June 1989", he says in the documentary's opening. But today, he finds its name ("The door to celestial peace") "so untrue".