A group of independent filmmakers are set to direct “Tiananmen” (working title), a film paying homage to Hong Kong’s golden age of cinema in a story set against the backdrop of the ‘June 4 political upheaval.’
The project will likely stir a controversy as both the word Tiananmen and the June 4 date are taboo in the People’s Republic of China (mainland China) — they are reminders of the student-led pro-democracy movement that was brutally put down 35 years ago by the People’s Liberation Army in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square. Estimates of the death toll range from several hundred to over a thousand.
The filmmakers say that their project, currently at development stage, is set in 1989 when the Hong Kong economy was booming and when, for a while at least, there was hope that Western-style democracy might take hold in mainland China. That hope briefly eased concerns about the handover of the territory from Britain to China in 1997.
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