The Gate of Heavenly Peace (continued)

"The Gate of Heavenly Peace" is the first film to tell the story of Tiananmen from a Chinese perspective, presenting a wide range of views concerning the struggle for a better society. The film follows the fate of the moderate "third way" of Chinese political debate and civic action, which has remained largely unnoticed by the Western media. By giving these ignored voices their place in history, the film reveals an ongoing debate in China concerning the importance of personal responsibility and moral integrity.

The film reveals how hard-liners within the government marginalized moderates among the protesters (including students, workers, and intellectuals), while the actions of radical protesters undermined moderates in the government. Moderate voices were gradually silenced by extremism and emotionalism on both sides. The film suggests that if the moderates among the protesters had prevailed over the extremists within the movement and strategically abandoned the Square, the massacre might have been avoided. The film in no way excuses the brutality of the Beijing regime, but it casts crucial new light on this watershed event.

"The Gate of Heavenly Peace" is directed and produced by Carma Hinton, who was born and raised in China, and Richard Gordon, who has been involved with many films about China as a director, producer, and cinematographer. With an international group of scholars and participants in the events of 1989, they spent six years investigating this important project. More than 250 hours of historical and contemporary archival footage were analyzed in order to construct the most complete and accurate picture to date of the 1989 events and their historical context. Archival footage includes Western and Chinese newsreels from the 1920s to the present, contemporary news coverage of the 1989 protests from international news crews; home video shot by local Chinese and foreigners who observed the movement; a vast collection of stills, posters, artwork, and music reflecting trends in Chinese popular culture; and official Chinese newscasts and documentaries.

"The Gate of Heavenly Peace" is a co-presentation of the Independent Television Service (ITVS) and FRONTLINE. Major funding is provided by the National Endowment for the Humanities with additional funding from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, The Ford Foundation, The Rockefeller Foundation, The Marjorie Kovler Fund, The Aaron Diamond Foundation, and the John Merck Fund (partial list).

FRONTLINE is produced by a consortium of public television stations: WGBH Boston, WTVS Detroit, WPBT Miami, WNET New York, and KCTS Seattle.

Funding for FRONTLINE is provided by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and public television viewers.

FRONTLINE is closed-captioned for deaf and hard-of-hearing viewers.

FRONTLINE's "Gate of Heavenly Peace" feature Web site -- accessed through the World Wide Web at http://www.pbs.org/frontline or http://www.wgbh.org/frontline -- will include more than 200 pages of discussion about the film from Chinese and Western press, including articles about the Chinese government's attempt to block the film's screening as well as links to Chinese-language archives, magazines, and source materials currently on the Web. In addition to the English-language version, a full Chinese-language version of the site is under construction. Both sites will eventually be linked to an extensive digital archive currently under development at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The executive producer for FRONTLINE is David Fanning.

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