"Newfoundland at Armageddon," Brian McKenna's two-hour documentary reenactment of Newfoundlanders at the Battle of the Somme (July 1 1916) is showing on CBC-TV tonight, Thursday June 30 at 8 pm.
To commemorate the one hundredth anniversary, Brian McKenna’s latest feature documentary film Newfoundland at Armageddon tells the story of this epic tragedy. Using a technique he perfected during his 2007 project, The Great War, 21 descendants of soldiers who fought with the Newfoundland Regiment were recruited. They were offered a unique opportunity to relive the experience of their ancestors in trenches built specifically for this event, on a National Defence of Canada rifle range near St. John’s in Newfoundland. Four of the descendants travelled to Europe to follow in their ancestors’ footsteps from landing in England, training in Scotland and finally marching on the field of Beaumont Hamel.McKenna is not modest about the film:
"On every level, we are going to make the best war documentary, I think, that's ever been made."
