Controversial ‘Battle of the Somme’ footage: authentic or staged? On the 109th anniversary of the ‘Battle of the Somme’, we are again reminded of perhaps the most iconic footage of the Great War. A cameraman seemingly captures the exact moment British troops climb from their trenches on 1 July 1916 and advance through a hail of bullets toward the German trenches. On 10 July civilian filmmaker Geoffrey Malins returned to London with 8,000 feet of film. The completed documentary, which ran for 77