Great War Diaries
Broadcaster
BBC TWO
Executive Producer
Sue Temple
Director
Jan Peter
Producer
Gunnar Dedio
Head of Production
Vivienne Steele
Quotes
"A moving and sometimes gripping documentary (in three parts) of archive, voiced testimony and dramatisation, stitched into a powerful shared narrative."
Phil Hogan, The Guardian
Over 10 years in the making, in collaboration with 25 foreign broadcasters, this moving documentary follows the individual stories of twelve characters from seven countries – Britain, France, Germany, Austria, Italy, Australia and Russia – whose writings are woven into one compelling and powerful narrative.
The most affecting testimonies were those of children: the daughter of a Cossack colonel who stopped a puffing troop train in its tracks and followed her father to war; an eager boy scanning the newspaper for news of a swift and glorious French victory; two bemused middle-class German schoolgirls living near the eastern front. “If you are quiet and pay close attention, you can feel the earth shaking,” said one. “It is an ominous feeling.” Phil Hogan, The Guardian
Through glorious dramatic reconstruction, archive and voiced testimony, viewers experience the greatest war mankind had ever seen; not from the perspective of what it was, but of what it was like from within.
