01/04/2014 - Alicia Vikander, Kit Harrington and Taron Egerton among the cast

Principal photography is well under way at Yorkshire, Oxford and London locations for Testament of Youth, based on Vera Brittain’s 1933 memoir of the same name. James Kent (television’s The Thirteenth Tale) is directing from an adaptation of the book by Juliette Towhidi (Calendar Girls). 

Alicia Vikander (A Royal Affair [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Mikkel Boe Følsgaard
interview: Nikolaj Arcel
film profile]) plays the iconic writer, feminist and pacifist Vera Brittain in the film. The cast also includes Kit Harington (Pompeii [+see also:
trailer
making of
film profile]), Taron Egerton (The Secret Service), Colin Morgan (Island), Dominic West (John Carter), Emily Watson (The Book Thief [+see also:
trailer
making of
film profile]), Joanna Scanlan (The Invisible Woman [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Ralph Fiennes
film profile]) and Hayley Atwell (Captain America: The Winter Soldier).

The UK’s BBC Films, Screen Yorkshire’s Yorkshire Content Fund, BFI, Ingenious, LipSync and Denmark’s Nordisk Film Production are financing. Protagonist Pictures is handling international sales, and Lionsgate UK is distributing in the UK and Australia.

David Heyman (Gravity [+see also:
trailer
making of
film profile]) and Rosie Alison (Paddington) are producing for Heyday Films. The co-producer is Celia Duval (television’s Salting the Batttlefield), and executive producers are Christine Langan (Philomena [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Stephen Frears
film profile]) and Joe Oppenheimer (Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa [+see also:
trailer
film profile]) for BBC Films; Richard Mansell (Tiger House); Zygi Kamasa (The Railway Man [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile]) for Lionsgate UK; and Hugo Heppell (’71 [+see also:
film review
trailer
Q&A: Yann Demange
film profile]) for Screen Yorkshire. Natascha Wharton is the lead executive for the British Film Institute Film Fund.

Langan said, “Testament Of Youth is one of the most potent and moving war memoirs ever written. In this centenary year, there can be few more significant ways of examining the First World War and its phenomenal impact on 20^th-century life and beyond.”