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Thirties in Colour: Countdown to War takes black-and-white films from the era and colourises the footage, bringing the past vividly back to life.
Now playingSeason 1, Episode 1
Watching1. Europe: After the Fire
When the Armistice was signed in November 1918, Kahn's team photographed the scenes of jubilation in Paris as they witnessed the negotiations at the Paris Peace Conference and recorded the horrifying aftermath of four years of war and the upheaval that followed war in the Rhineland and Turkey.
2. Middle East: The Birth of Nations
The First World War led to the disintegration of the Ottoman Empire and its former provinces came under the control of France and Britain. Though as the occupying troops arrived, the people of present-day Syria, Lebanon and Palestine were already entertaining hopes that they would be able to govern themselves. Albert Kahn's cameras were there to record the establishment of new nations.
3. Far East: Expeditions to Empires
Between 1914 and 1928, Kahn sent some of his most talented photographers to the Far East. In Cambodia, Vietnam and Japan, they produced a compelling photographic record of economic and cultural life, subsistence industries, and ceremonial practices, and produced a fascinating portrait of the life of a wealthy Maharajah in India during the British Raj.
4. The End of a World
The last programme in the series shows the films shot by Kahn's cameraman Lucien Le Saint who joined the French fishing fleets in Newfoundland, the film and colour autochromes shot by Frederic Gadmer who recorded Voodoo religious practices in Benin and the experimental colour films produced by Camille Sauvageot in 1928, depicting the lives of farmers, Gypsies and bullfighters in France.
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