Storm Alexander Hammer Boysen (b. 2005) is a Danish independent researcher and filmmaker dedicated to preserving and reviving the film heritage of the First World War. He is the founder of To Hell and Back Project, an international cultural-historical initiative focused on restoring and contextualizing footage from 1914 to 1918.

Boysen began the To Hell and Back Project in November 2022, shortly after turning seventeen, inspired by a single forgotten frontline film. What started as a small research curiosity grew into a full-time, multidisciplinary effort involving historical research, film restoration workflows, learning laws on film heritage, negotiations with national institutions across Europe, and the review of hundreds of hours of material. He has published some of this footage on the project's Instagram page, which now has over 7000 followers. One of Boysen's biggest objectives throughout his years-long research was finding examples of filmed frontline combat from the First World War.

Working across collections in more than ten countries, he has identified individual soldiers in century-old films, reconstructed combat sequences that had been overlooked for decades, geolocated and dated historically significant scenes, and negotiated access to laboratory scanning of film material in European and Russian-held collections. His work combines historical research, film analysis, archival preservation, digital restoration, and heritage-access advocacy. In July 2025, he launched a crowdfunding campaign to investigate the Russian State Archives’ holdings of German Bild- und Film-Amt (BUFA) films from 1917–1918, because he presumed some of the surviving BUFA films remained in Moscow since the Second World War. Although the research uncovered few original materials of direct relevance, the campaign itself was a success. 

He is advised by Prof. Dr. Gerhard Hirschfeld of the University of Stuttgart, one of the world’s foremost historians of the First World War; Robert A. Harris, the renowned preservationist behind Lawrence of Arabia, The Godfather, and Vertigo; and Prof. Dr. Marcel Will, historian and professor at the Baden-Württemberg Cooperative State University. He also works closely with historian and genealogical researcher J. David Brandenburg, who he considers his mentor. In late 2025, one of Boysen’s discoveries, Austro-Hungarian frontline footage from 1918, believed to show genuine combat, prompted formal engagement from the Heeresgeschichtliches Museum in Vienna, the Director of the Hungarian Institute of Military History in Budapest, and a meeting with the Ambassador at the Hungarian Embassy in Copenhagen. The Hungarian Institute has offered to confidentially evaluate and verify the material’s authenticity, marking the project’s first recognition at a diplomatic institutional level. 

Boysen is planning to organize a closed research screening at the Danish Film Institute in 2026, bringing together historians and military specialists from Austria, Hungary, Germany, and Denmark to evaluate material that may represent some of the first known surviving examples of filmed frontline combat from the First World War. His long-term goal is a feature-length documentary on Germany in the First World War constructed entirely from restored, colorized, and sound-reconstructed original footage.

Before turning fully to film preservation, Boysen joined Copenhagen Suborbitals, the world’s only crowdfunded human-spaceflight program, at age fifteen. He contributed to liquid-rocket development, fundraising, and later served as Vice Chairman at eighteen. He is currently completing his higher preparatory examination in Copenhagen. Entirely self-taught and having homeschooled himself from age ten, he combines discipline with historical research in what he considers his first major life's mission: to restore the images of First World War soldiers and return their humanity to the present.

J. D. Brandenburg. Since a very young age, David Brandenburg has had an interest in history, particularly German history, on account of his family name. About the age of ten or eleven, he saw for the first time the BBC television series “The Fall of Eagles.” His interest in German history thereafter focused on the era of the middle nineteenth century through the First World War. University studies in history included the Dual Monarchy of Austria-Hungary, the tradition of federalism in the development of the unified German state, and economic and banking history of the German Empire. 

Complimenting these studies were courses of German language at the Humboldt-Institut and the Harvard Summer School, along with Hungarian language at Emory University and the Debreceni Nyari Egyetem (Debrecen Summer School). 

A professional researcher of historical and genealogical records, David is author of a book, which won the Award for Excellence of the National Genealogical Society in the USA. During a visit to Paris, David met the late Dr. Michel Huberty, lead co-author of L’Allemagne dynastique, which is a genealogy of the fifteen dynasties involved in the founding of the German Empire in 1871. 

When called upon by Dr. Huberty, David conducted research in the USA in support of the multi-volume L’Allemagne dynastique. In Hungary, David purchased for himself and Dr. Huberty copies of an important collection of genealogies of the Hungarian nobility. In earlier careers, David worked in finance and was the president of a beer company. David considers his participation with the To Hell and Back Project to be a culmination of his lifetime individual studies.

Prof. Dr. Marcel Will is a Professor of Social Work at the Baden-Württemberg Cooperative State University (DHBW) in Villingen-Schwenningen, specializing in social policy, welfare economy, the history of social welfare, and international relations. His academic work examines the development of welfare systems and the ways historical trajectories shape contemporary social challenges. In teaching, he emphasizes analytical clarity, historical grounding, and the connection between political structures and everyday realities. More recently, he has also begun exploring the opportunities and risks that artificial intelligence poses for democratic and social life. He chose to academically support the To Hell and Back Project because its commitment to historical accuracy, public education, and ethical storytelling aligns closely with his belief that historical understanding is essential for a mature democratic culture.

Prof. Dr. Gerhard Hirschfeld is one of the world’s leading historians of the First World War and former Director of the Library of Contemporary History (Stuttgart). He has authored and edited more than fifty books on WWI, modern German history, and international conflict studies, and has held visiting professorships at renowned institutions across Europe and Asia. His scholarship has shaped the field for decades, and he brings deep historical expertise to the To Hell and Back Project.

Robert A. Harris is a renowned film preservationist, best known for his landmark restorations of Lawrence of Arabia, The Godfather, Vertigo, Spartacus, My Fair Lady, and other cinematic classics. His work has set industry standards for photochemical and digital restoration, and he has collaborated closely with major studios, archives, and preservation organizations. Harris advises the To Hell and Back Project on restoration methodology.