Montreal – Filmmaker Brian McKenna (Big Sugar) is hoping that nostalgia will win over audiences for his ambitious CBC miniseries, The Great War.

The $4.3-million two-parter, which began shooting outside of Montreal on July 22 and will wrap in the first week of September, will recreate in painstaking detail various battles that took place during the First World War.

‘The point of this production is to tell a part of Canadian history and to do so in a really unique and interesting way,’ says producer Arnie Gelbart of Galafilm. Last year he and McKenna placed ads on CBC and its French-language counterpart Radio-Canada, asking viewers if their grandfathers or great-grandfathers had fought in WWI.

‘We were besieged,’ says Gelbart. ‘The responses were amazing. We got 6,500 e-mails in our first week.’ A dozen of those respondents had their great-grandparents’ stories interwoven into the script.

Furthermore, 150 descendants of veterans and nurses who fought and served were put through a military camp, going through precisely the same training and preparation as WWI soldiers. They act in the battle-scene recreations.

The series has also landed a notable cast member in Justin Trudeau, son of the former prime minister, who will play Canuck war hero Talbot Papineau.

‘We wanted to create a historical program that would feel like living history,’ says Gelbart. ‘McKenna really feels that this moment, this war, was a coming of age for Canada. People will be moved, surprised, and learn things they didn’t already know. This is a rich bit of history that we really don’t hear much about. We believe we’ll reach a mass audience with this.’

The Great War will air in English on CBC and in French (as La Grande Guerre) on SRC in April 2007, timed to commemorate the 90th anniversary of the battle of Vimy Ridge.

It is produced by Galafilm in association with the CBC and SRC. It is produced by Stephen Phizicky and Natalie Dubois and exec produced by McKenna and Gelbart. The cinematographers are Mark Ellam and Yoan Cart and the editor is Michael Butler.