War Time Weddings

Happy farmers, a wedding and some giant cauliflowers...

A young woman researches the hidden story of Indian soldiers who came to fight in France and Belgium during the World War I. The presence of these 140,000 soldiers in Europe is a virtually unknown fact of history.

1988 CBC docudrama on Canada's role in WW1. Terence McKenna tours the Battlefields of Ypres, the Somme, Vimy Ridge and Paschendaele. Actors portray several Canadian soldiers in WW1 in re-enactments based on their memoirs, diaries and letters.

A documentary and propaganda film which shows the British Army's preparations for, and the early stages of, the battle of the Somme.

Hosted by actor and historian Sir Tony Robinson, this one-off special tells the powerful and moving story of five men, all members of a unique volunteer army – the Sheffield City battalion – as it recounts the soldiers’ last days, leaving their homes and loved ones to go and serve alongside their friends and neighbours, completely unaware of what lay ahead of them. Central to the programme is the story of Private Frank Meakin, who recorded his unique personal testimony of the war. Frank and his friends could never have anticipated what they would experience, but 100 years on we know in detail, thanks to his diary – an account that shouldn’t have existed, because keeping one was forbidden for servicemen on active duty on the Western Front. Frank’s diary, which was smuggled back from the Front, reveals the intimate details and dramatic stories of one battalion – and one British city – in the words of one man.

Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, better known as Lenin, is remembered as the instigator of the October Revolution of 1917 and, therefore, as one of the men who changed the shape of the world at that time and forever, but perhaps the actual events happened in a way different from that narrated in the history books…

A very personal account of one of the last gentlemen of a dying era. In fact, Paul Jarrett will forever be remembered in the annals of American history as the last WWI veteran to ever return to the battlefields of France.

The film is about metamorphosis of wedding traditions. What happened to the old wedding ways and customs that were market by joy, mystery and sadness?

Report retracing the military campaigns of the Belgian colonial troops in Africa through geographical maps, title cards, and documentary footage.

French soldiers injured in WWI are re-educated to learn new trades.

Neil Oliver describes the worst ever railway accident in the UK, which happened a hundred years ago on 22 May 1915, in which three trains collided at Quintinshill near Gretna Green. One of the trains was a troop train taking soldiers to fight in World War I at the Battle of Gallipoli: many of the dead were in this train which caught fire due to escaped gas from the archaic gas lighting in the carriages. The cause of the crash was attributed to a catastrophic signalman's error, but Neil examines whether there were other contributory factors and whether there was a cover-up to prevent investigation of them, making convenient scapegoats of the signalmen.

1917, The Train from Hell is an historical documentary about a train accident during WW1.

On April 18th, 1906, San Francisco witnessed its most devastating natural disaster – an earthquake that initiated a city-wide fire. The commanding officer of the U.S. Army base at the Presidio, Fred Funston, gathered citizens to fight the fire, patrol the streets, and rebuild the city – all without authorization.

'Our Day' badges and flags being sold in aid of wounded WWI soldiers are shown in this Topical Budget film.

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102 Years in the Heart of Europe: A Portrait of Ernst Jünger (Swedish: 102 år i hjärtat av Europa) is a Swedish documentary film from 1998 directed by Jesper Wachtmeister. It consists of an interview by the journalist Björn Cederberg with the German writer, philosopher and war veteran Ernst Jünger (1895-1998). Jünger talks about his life, his authorship, his interests and ideas. The actor Mikael Persbrandt reads passages from some of Jünger's works, such as Storm of Steel, The Worker, On the Marble Cliffs and The Glass Bees.

A young filmmaker is commissioned to write a documentary about the First World War. He tries to find a way to tell the story of the war. What is to be done with all these films waiting in the archives to be shown again? He tries his hand at different styles of writing and editing, keeping in mind the question: can you make a montage film without transforming the images?

Producer Samuel Cummins, along with five participants in World War I, discuss the key events of the war as illustrated by an assemblage of battlefield and other documentary footage. This film is not the same as, but seems likely to have either inspired or been inspired by, Norman Lee's British production of the same title (q.v.), apparently released the following year.

Part of the documentary series looking at the course of the First World War. This volume examines the events of 1917, when the Allies launched desperate attacks on the German lines with huge casualties, but with little result. By the end of the year, the Russians had withdrawn from the conflict following the Revolution, while the Americans were slowly becoming involved.

It is hard to find a family home where all the members have gone to live their separate lives in different parts of the world. Travelling between different continents, the director visits divorced parents and their new partners and also meets her sister who decided to join an alternative community. Their family exists on archival films and photographs only. Is it still possible to put it all together against all odds?