IDTV - Looking For An Icon (2005)

Looking for an Icon

Every year for the last fifty years, a professional jury of the World Press Photo Foundation has selected one photograph as winner of the “World Press Photo of the Year” competition. Some of these images have had such an impact on society that they have become symbols of their time - true historical icons.

Looking For An Icon examines the process by which photos become icons, revealing that once a photo is published, social forces are at work beyond the photographer's control. The film focuses on four World Press Photo winners, including Eddie Adams's 1968 photo of the public execution of a Viet Cong prisoner, an anonymous photographer's last image of Salvador Allende during the 1973 coup, Charlie Cole's 1989 photo of a lone student confronting tanks in Tiananmen Square, and David Turnley's 1991 photo of a grieving soldier during the first Gulf War.

The film details the story behind each of those world-famous images, featuring interviews with the photographers, and showing additional images from the contact sheets. LOOKING FOR AN ICON also features interviews with other photographers, photo editors, critics, educators, historians and members of the World Press Photo jury.

Icarus Film Site

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