29 July 2026

By Tim Koch

HTBS Types may remember that in January I posted many extracts from the great Jack Beresford’s photograph albums, including a two-part piece on the 1936 Berlin Olympics where Beresford and Southwood won the double sculls after an exciting race.

The present custodian of the albums is Jack’s son, John, who tells me that he has contributed to an upcoming documentary on the 1936 Games that uses digitally colourised film. Much of the black and white film taken at the time was shot by the innovative but controversial Nazi filmmaker, Leni Riefenstahl. 

The production company is Woodcut Media, a filmmaker that specialises in historical documentary projects featuring state-of-the-art colourisation techniques on subjects such as the Space Race, the Titanic and the Manhattan Project.

At present only viewers in Britain will be able to watch the programme which is titled Hitler’s Games: Berlin 1936 In Colour.  It is due to be aired on Saturday, 1st August at 8pm on Channel 4. No doubt it will then be available on Channel 4’s on-demand service, More4.