London (AFP)
German director Wim Wenders opened an exhibition in London on Friday of his photographs, apocalyptic but carrying "hope", taken in the still smoking ruins of the World Trade Center towers after their collapse on September 11, 2001 in New York.
Twenty years after the deadliest attacks in history, the filmmaker said he visited the site "traumatized" two months after the attacks by the jihadist organization Al-Qaeda.
"I didn't know how to live with it and I felt I had to go and it helped me", he said during the presentation of the exhibition "Wim Wenders: Photographing Ground Zero", open until January 9 at the Imperial War Museum.
"I wanted this place to tell me something, to send me a message. And it was a peaceful message of hope," he explained.
He cited the rays of the sun rushing through the gigantic skeletons of the Twin Towers, amid the smoldering ruins littering a ground buried under a thick layer of ash.
“A surreal beauty appeared and I took it as a great sign of hope that there was something beautiful emerging,” he explained.
"My panoramic camera captured this incredible message: something terrible, hellish, has happened here, but please don't let this become a ground for more hate," he said. added.
"May this place be forever a symbol of peace and healing".
Director of "Paris, Texas", "The Wings of Desire" or "Pina", Wim Wenders has established himself as one of the most illustrious German directors of his generation thanks to an abundant work, with the privileged themes of time that passes, memory and loss.
Photography, a great passion of the director, has become more and more present in his works of the 2000s, as in the sentimental drama "Don't come knocking" (2005).
His photos have been the subject of several publications and exhibitions around the world.
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