Network Distributing, Strike Force Entertainment and the Imperial War Museum are delighted to announce the release of a definitive, digitally restored version of Battle Of The Somme, the first British documentary to be ascribed UNESCO status in the ‘Memory of the World’ register. It will be available to buy on DVD on 3rd November 2008, RRP £19.99, ninety years after the end of the Great War.
Battle Of The Somme is a pioneering battlefield documentary that was seen by huge audiences in the UK when it was released in August 1916, while the battle was still being fought.
Cinema-goers hailed it as an opportunity to see the reality of the Western Front for the first time, and to share the experiences of the soldiers who were fighting there.
The film inaugurated a debate about the on-screen depiction of combat that continues to this day, and is the origin of some of the most widely used and iconic moving images of the First World War.
This remarkable film, digitally restored by the Imperial War Museum’s Film and Video Archive and Dragon Digital Intermediate is a startling improvement on previously released video versions.