Indie, Woodcut Media, and distributor, Woodcut International, have presold two new documentaries – Hitler’s Games: Berlin 1936 in Colour and The Space Race in Colour – to Channel 4.
Currently in production, the docs combine expert historical analysis with state-of-the-art colourisation techniques, archive footage and some never-before heard interviews and eyewitness testimonies.
Hitler’s Games: Berlin 1936 in Colour (1 x 60’) – In 1931, Germany was awarded the Olympic Games in the hope this would draw them into the international community and world peace would be promoted through sport. For two weeks in August 1936 cameras captured the world’s greatest sporting spectacle, including the Gold Medal triumphs of record-breaking sprinter Jesse Owens. The Berlin Olympics were groundbreaking – many innovations introduced in 1936 such as television coverage and the torch relay became part of every subsequent Games. Hitler’s Games in Colour tells the story of the remarkable amateurs who excelled, but also how Hitler used the Games as propaganda for his brutal regime, to show the Nazis as benign and their military ambitions as modest. Using black and white archive, transformed by cutting-edge restoration and colourisation, this is the story of 16 days that fooled the world…
The Space Race in Colour ( 2 x 60’) – The 1950s and 1960s witnessed an unprecedented surge in space exploration, led by the USA and the USSR. This rivalry aka the ‘Space Race’ – climaxed with the greatest technological achievement in human history: the Apollo Moon Landings. The doc recaptures the drama of this competition for supremacy, which went on to define the nuclear age and explores the uneasy alliance between visionary rocket engineers and politicians’ desire for military supremacy. From the first satellite to the first man on the moon, and its impact on the Cold War, the doc shows how the race was about more than missiles: it was also a question of surveillance, espionage, and the possibilities for living in space.
Series’ Producer is Jonathan Mayo, with Kate Beal as Executive Producer. Tom Adams joins Beal as Executive Producer for The Space Race in Colour.
Jonathan Mayo said: “Whether capturing the technological feats of the Space Race or the political theatre of the 1936 Berlin Olympic Games, the colourisation of the archive reveals these defining moments as living, human stories rather than distant historical events.”
Koulla Anastasi, Managing Director, Woodcut International added: “Our franchise is going from strength-to-strength, we feel the colourisation, unique access and techniques employed to tell these stories, speaks to powerful historical accounts with contemporary relevance and global appeal. ”
These two new docs follow on from the success of ‘Titanic in Colour’, ‘The Race for Ancient Egypt in Colour’, ‘Britain’s Railway Empire in Colour’ and ‘The Manhattan Project in Colour’.
Jon Creamer
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