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Gallipoli: The New Zealand Story

Television (Full Length) – 1984

This documentary tells the stories of the New Zealand soldiers who were part of the identity-defining Gallipoli campaign in World War I. In the ill-fated mission to take a piece of Turkish coastline, 2721 New Zealanders died with 4752 wounded. As part of research, every one of the then-surviving Gallipoli veterans living in New Zealand was interviewed, with 26 finally filmed. Shot at a barren, rocky Gallipoli before the advent of Anzac Day tourism, this important record screened on Easter Sunday 1984, and won a Feltex Award for Best Documentary.

The fight was as much with the landscape as with the Turk. "It was hell heaped up", one Anzac said/
– Presenter Leonard Thornton

Music

Music composed by Bernie Allen and Tony Baker

Performed by the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra

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