Peter Jackson working on World War I documentary

Filmmaker Peter Jackson is modernising World War I footage for a new documentary. Reportedly, the

'Lord of the Rings'

director will take the archival footage from the conflict and digitally restore it to show what life in the Great War might actually have been like.


The film project is part of 14-18 NOW, the United Kingdom's arts program commissioned to commemorate the centennial of World War I's end in 1918. Jackson has used modern technology to update and colourise the footage. It has also been paired with similarly archival interviews of World War I veterans.

"We have made a movie to show the experience of what it was like to fight in this war. We don't talk about strategies, battles, or the historical aspects of the war. We just talk about the social experience, the human experience, of being in the war. I've never heard these interviews before, and they talk about it in a way that's surprising," the director said in an announcement video. The film will have its premiere during the London Film Festival in October before being broadcast on television.