News

Read More: Alicia Vikander on Playing a Robot in 'Ex Machina' Alicia Vikander's star-making performance as robot Ava in "Ex Machina" (now playing nationwide) is one of the cinematic highlights of the year thus far, and luckily fans won't have to wait long to see the 26-year-old Swedish beauty back on the big screen. Following a successful release in Britain earlier this year, James Kent's Wwi period piece "Testament of Youth," starring Vikander and "Game of Thrones" headliner Kit Harington, will hit domestic theaters this June. Based on the 1933 memoir of the same name by Vera Brittain, "Youth" recounts the promising Oxford student's life and the sacrifice she made to become a Wwi nurse after her fiancé (Harington), brother and friends were all sent to the front lines. Brittain's voluntary service led her from London to Malta and France and forced her to confront the horrors of battle...

Sony Pictures Classics has released the brand new trailer and poster for their upcoming film Testament Of Youth, starring Alicia Vikander (Ex MacHina), Kit Harington (HBO’s Game of Thrones), and Taron Egerton.

Testament Of Youth is a powerful story of love, war and remembrance, based on the First World War memoir by Vera Brittain, which has become the classic testimony of that war from a woman’s point of view. A searing journey from youthful hopes and dreams to the edge of despair and back again, it’s a film about young love, the futility of war and how to make sense of the darkest times.

The film opens on June 5.

The post Watch The First Trailer For Testament Of Youth Starring Alicia Vikander, Kit Harington And Taron Egerton appeared first on We Are Movie Geeks.

If you haven't yet seen Ex Machina get out there and do so as it expands even further this weekend. Along with an overall great film you'll also get to see a great performance from Alicia Vikander whose name first came to most people's attention with A Royal Affair a couple years later, but after Ex Machina and this summer's Testament of Youth her stock is likely to continue to rise and, who knows, maybe an Oscar nomination in the near future. Today we have a new trailer for the latter film I mentioned there, Testament of Youth, a World War I feature adapted from the memoir by Vera Brittain played here by one Alicia Vikander opposite Kit Harrington ("Game of Thrones"). Here's the plot: Vera, irrepressible, intelligent and free-minded, overcomes the prejudices of her family and hometown, to win a scholarship to Oxford. With everything to live for, she...

Emilia Clarke may be the “Game of Thrones” cast member with the highest profile film release this year —the much derided “Terminatory: Genisys”— but she’s not the only citizen of Westeros to appear on the big screen this summer. Kit Harington is co-starring in a Wwi period piece called “Testament of Youth,” and a new U.S. trailer has arrived. Based on Vera Brittain’s memoir, the film takes place during World War I and stars Alicia Vikander (“Ex Machina”) as a woman who drops out of Oxford to become a war nurse after her fiancé (Harington), brother and friends are sent to the front lines. It could make a welcome feminist-friendly respite during the hot summer months. Indeed, our review noted that it's "beautifully observed." “Testament of Youth” opens in limited release on June 5th before expanding. Watch the trailer below.

Now that the film has already seen a release in the UK, it's time for Us audiences to get familiar with director James Kent’s new film Testament of Youth. The film is based on Vera Brittain’s First World War memoir of the same name and stars Alicia Vikander as Vera Brittain. Vikander is joined by Game of Thrones’ Kit Harington who plays her fiancé, Roland Leighton. I'm not familiar with the source material but this seems like a handsomely photographed period piece that's, as far as I can tell, competently executed on just about every level besides that as well. Check out the Us version of Testament of Youth Trailer below. The film also stars Taron Egerton, Emily Watson, Hayley Atwell, Colin Morgan, Joanna Scanlan, Alexandra Roach, Jonathan Bailey, Anna Chancellor, Nicholas Le Prevost, Nicholas Farrell, Dominic West and Miranda Richardson. Trailer courtesy of Yahoo: Here’s the...

Exclusive: New films from Ben Wheatley, Eleanor Coppola, Joshua Marston in-demand.

UK sales outfit Protagonist Pictures secured a slew of deals on their impressive Efm slate, including multiple deals on new films from Ben Wheatley, Eleanor Coppola and Joshua Marston.

Heading the company’s slate was Bonjour Anne, Eleanor Coppola’s road-trip romance-drama which is due to shoot later in the spring with Diane Lane, Yvan Attal and Nicolas Cage.

The project proved a hit with buyers, selling to Latin America and South Korea (California Filmes), Scandinavia (Svensk), Poland (Kinoswiat), Portugal (Lusomundo), South Africa (Times Media Films), Turkey (Tanweer), Former Yugoslavia and Bulgaria (McF), Middle East (Front Row Entertainment), Baltics (Hea Films), Czech Republic and Slovakia (Cinemart), and Airlines (Cinesky).

Frequent Coppola partner Tohokushinsha had already taken a host of territories in Asia including Japan, Taiwan, Thailand, Philippines, Indonesia and India.

Rebecca Miller’s upcoming comedy Maggie’s Plan, starrring Greta Gerwig, Ethan Hawke and newly...

Exclusive: New films from Ben Wheatley, Eleanor Coppola, Joshua Marston in-demand.

UK sales outfit Protagonist Pictures secured a slew of deals on their impressive Efm slate, including multiple deals on new films from Ben Wheatley, Eleanor Coppola and Joshua Marston.

Heading the company’s slate was Bonjour Anne, Eleanor Coppola’s road-trip romance-drama which is due to shoot later in the spring with Diane Lane, Yvan Attal and Nicolas Cage.

The project proved a hit with buyers, selling to Latin America and South Korea (California Filmes), Scandinavia (Svensk), Poland (Kinoswiat), Portugal (Lusomundo), South Africa (Times Media Films), Turkey (Tanweer), Former Yugoslavia and Bulgaria (McF), Middle East (Front Row Entertainment), Baltics (Hea Films), Czech Republic and Slovakia (Cinemart), and Airlines (Cinesky).

Frequent Coppola partner Tohokushinsha had already taken a slew of territories in Asia including Japan, Taiwan, Thailand, Philippines, Indonesia and India.

Rebecca Miller’s upcoming comedy Maggie’s Plan, starrring Greta Gerwig, Ethan Hawke and newly...

BFI figures show that there was a 35% increase in film production in the UK during 2014 with a total spend of £1.471bn, the highest recorded figure ever.

Film production in the UK hit a record high in 2014.

According to independent figures released by the BFI, last year saw a 35% increase in film production on 2013 with a total spend on £1.471bn, the highest recorded figure ever. Tax reliefs for film, high-end television, animation and video games are helping to drive production investment.

During 2014, international inward investment films coming to the UK included the likes of Star Wars: Episode VII - The Force Awakens and Mission: Impossible 5, while domestic UK films which went into production across the UK included Testament of Youth, Dad’s Army and Shaun the Sheep.

Independent UK productions also achieved their highest ever market share at the UK box office at almost 16%, with Paddington (£35.5m as of Feb 1) leading the way. Other successes...

Testament of Youth star says strong female roles are “rare” today.

Swedish actress Alicia Vikander has said she “fought hard” for the role of iconic British writer Vera Brittain in World War One biopic Testament of Youth, in part due to the rarity of strong female film roles today.

Speaking at the BFI Southbank last night as part of the ‘BFI Presents’ series, the in-demand actress said: “I fought hard for this role…I met James [director James Kent] just before Christmas 2013. We went for dinner and I just came in there ready saying ‘I know that I’m Swedish but I can do this so please give me the chance’.

“You know, it’s rare, it’s so rare to find strong female roles in film nowadays”, she continued.

“So when you get one of those scripts on your table it’s just an instant love.”

Actress Vikander, director James Kent and producer Rosie Allison were joined at the...

Director: James Kent; Screenwriter: Juliette Towhidi; Starring: Alicia Vikander, Kit Harington, Taron Egerton, Colin Morgan, Dominic West, Emily Watson; Running time: 130 mins; Certificate: 12A

After a '70s BBC TV adaptation, Vera Brittain's World War I memoir Testament of Youth comes to the big screen this week under the stewardship of Harry Potter producer David Heyman and director James Kent. What emerges is a well-mounted drama that's a moving look at the seismic effect the Great War had on a generation.

Fast-rising Swedish star Alicia Vikander is the beating heart of the story, bringing spirit and steely determination (not to mention an impeccable British accent) to the role of Brittain. This will come as no surprise to those who caught her in A Royal Affair and Anna Karenina, and with Testament of Youth the first of eight films she has coming up in 2015, it's looking like a big year.

Testament of Youth is a first world war drama that stars Alicia Vikander as Vera Brittain, a pacifist author who recounted her experiences as a nurse during the war, and Kit Harington, as a poet serving in France. In this clip Brittain tends to a German soldier who is dying in hospital. Testament of Youth is released on 16 January Continue reading...

Ahead of the movie hitting our shores on the 16th of January, Testament of Youth, based on the First World War memoir by Vera Brittain, recently held it's U.K. premiere, ad below you can see some images from the event which had stars Kit Garrington, Alicia Vikander, Taron Egerton, Colin Morgan, and more out in full force. Also, our friends in the U.K. have a date to put in their diary, with screenings, as part of 'BFI Presents', taking place in four hundred cinemas around the country, followed by a special live Q and A with the cast, director James Kent, producer Rosie Alison, and Vera Brittain's Baroness Shirley Williams. Full details can be found here.

UK cinema in 2015 has plenty to recommend it. Here are 36 UK films of all genres to look forward to this year…

Dig past the litterfall of Kray Brothers biopics and tales of nubile teens on camping trips gone wrong, and you’ll unearth plenty for the UK film industry to boast about in 2015. From sci-fi romps and thrillers like Robot Overlords and Ex Machina to dramas like High-Rise, comedies like War On Everyone, spy flicks like Spectre and kids’ films like Bill, there’s no shortage of inventive, highly promising cinema coming from these isles.

We’ve included a few choice co-productions in 2015’s pick of the year’s most interesting-looking pictures, which bolsters our list in both size and breadth (and mostly means we Brits can claim partial credit for ace-sounding dystopian flick The Lobster).

In alphabetical order then, here are the 36 UK (or UK-ish) movies we’re excited about seeing this year…...

Game of Thrones star Kit Harington swaps Westeros for World War I this month when he steps onto the big screen for the eagerly-awaited adaptation of Vera Brittain's Testament of Youth.

The film follows the story of Brittain (Alicia Vikander), who postponed her studies at Oxford University to serve as a Voluntary Aid Detachment nurse during the war. Kit plays her fiancé Roland Leighton, who also left Oxford during wartime to fight in France for the Worcestershire Regiment.

Digital Spy will be sitting down with Kit next week for Testament of Youth and we want your questions for the Brit actor.

Want to know what it was like making his heart-wrenching war film? Got a burning question about Jon Snow? After the lowdown on his upcoming roles in Spooks: The Greater Good or Seventh Son?

Post your submissions in the comments box below or ask us through our movies...

Exclusive: Oliver Stone and Audiard dramas, Mel Gibson action Blood Father and Ben Wheatley’s Free Fire among haul.

Middle East distributor Front Row Filmed Entertainment has finalized deals for 26 films from the Afm, including Oliver Stone’s Untitled Snowden Project starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Shailene Woodley, action-thriller Blood Father with Mel Gibson and Studio Ghibli’s When Marnie Was There, all from Wild Bunch.

Front Row continued to cement its long-standing relationships with the likes of Protagonist Pictures and HanWay Films, acquiring the former’s upcoming Ben Wheatley action film Free Fire, Rob Zombie’s 31, David Farr-directed horror The Ones Below and the untitled Joshua Marston drama with Rachel Weisz and Michael Shannon.

From HanWay, Front Row secured Thai Boxing action film A Prayer Before Dawn, set to star Charlie Hunnam, The Limehouse Golem, written by Jane Goldman and the Kinks’ biopic You Really Got Me, produced by Jeremy Thomas.

From Embankment...

Welcome back to Best Movie Trailers of the Week, a column where we handpick the best new movie trailers that have arrived online over the past week. Avengers: Age of Ultron Minus a few all-time favorites, once the thrill of seeing new footage wears off and/or the actual movie comes out, there’s little interest in revisiting the promos. However, that might not be the case with the first trailer for Avengers: Age of Ultron. An extended version of that piece just dropped and even though we’ve watched the original at least a dozen times (if not more), it in no way takes away from the thrill of seeing the large majority of it again in this extended edition. Testament of Youth This new trailer for Testament of Youth proves that the film has at least one...

Read More...

Kit Harington and Alicia Vikander star in Testament of Youth as friends, and potential lovers, who are separated by the insanity of the First World War. Based on the memoir by Vera Brittain, considered one of the primary accounts of the war from a woman’s perspective, the film follows the dawning independence of Brittain (Vikander), and the […]

The post ‘Testament of Youth’ UK Trailer: Kit Harington and Alicia Vikander Are Separated by War appeared first on /Film.

Following a rapturous response at the London Film Festival, a new trailer for World War I drama Testament Of Youth has debuted online from Lionsgate. The big screen version of Vera Brittain’s story, or more accurately, her memoir has surfaced just in time to stand as a centennial tribute to the First World War. For those unfamiliar with Brittain, the tale of the young nurse’s personal journey during wartime England is summed up perfectly in this rather moving trailer.

Leading the film is Alicia Vikander as Brittain with Game Of Thrones northerner Kit Harington as her fiance, Roland Leighton. The latter manages to demonstrate that he has far more range than many assume, coming across like a young Colin Firth. Instead of merely trotting out Jon Snow in a less shabby outfit, Harington brings a surprising emotional verve to the trailer.

Of course, for an English period drama...

Lionsgate UK has just released an international trailer for Testament of Youth, based on the memoirs of Vera Brittain, played by Alicia Vikander. Game of Thrones' Kit Harington also stars as Roland Leighton, who convinces her to pursue a career in writing.

Intelligent and free-spirited Vera overcomes the narrow-mindedness of her conservative parents, winning a scholarship to Oxford. Entranced by her brother's dashing friend Roland, who shares her literary aspirations, she plunges into an intoxicating romance. Blooming, in love and on the cusp of fulfilling her ambitions, Vera's dreams are brutally shattered by the onset of war. When Roland and her brother ship out to the front, she abandons the cloistered environs of university life and volunteers as a nurse. Immediately confronted with the pitiless reality of the war's victims, her life is irrevocably changed as she loses, one-by-one, the young men she held so dear.

Hayley Atwell, Dominic West,...

Lionsgate UK just released a new trailer for James Kent’s Testament of Youth. The film is based on Vera Brittain’s First World War memoir of the same name and stars Alicia Vikander as Vera Brittain herself. Vikander is joined by Game of Thrones’ Kit Harington who plays her fiancé, Roland Leighton. It’s unfortunate that the film’s only got a January 16th UK release at the moment because this new Testament of Youth international trailer is an especially moving one. Vikander’s got quite the commanding on-screen presence and Harington actually manages to show off more than one facial expression. Hit the jump to check it out for yourself. The film also stars Taron Egerton, Emily Watson, Hayley Atwell, Colin Morgan, Joanna Scanlan, Alexandra Roach, Jonathan Bailey, Anna Chancellor, Nicholas Le Prevost, Nicholas Farrell, Dominic West and Miranda Richardson. Via Lionsgate Films UK. Here’s the synopsis...

Testament of Youth: Remembrance for a Lost Generation has released a new trailer.

Alicia Vikander and Game of Thrones' Kit Harington star in the adaptation of Vera Brittain's World War I memoir.

Emily Watson, Hayley Atwell, Colin Morgan, Taron Egerton, Joanna Scanlan, Alexandra Roach, Jonathan Bailey, Anna Chancellor, Nicholas Le Prevost, Nicholas Farrell, Dominic West and Miranda Richardson also feature in the James Kent-directed film.

Vikander stars as Brittain as she struggles against the early 20th century's strict ideas of a 'woman's place'.

She falls for Roland Leighton (Harington) only to find their lives torn asunder by the war.

Testament of Youth will be released on January 16, 2015 in the UK. A Us release date is yet to be announced.

I love when an actor you had zero familiarity with gives a couple of terrific performances in succession and is put directly on your radar. Such was the case with Alicia Vikander, who between A Royal Affair and Anna Karenina really took me aback. She delivered a tremendous range just between those two roles to where I would see whatever she was involved with. After sitting through her in a small role in the terrible The Fifth Estate, she is finally put back in the lead in the World War I romantic drama Testament of Youth, which has a new trailer for you to watch below. She is playing opposite Jon Snow himself, Kit Harington, which has me a little less interested in this film. I love "Game of Thrones", but Harington has always been the weak link on the show. He grew a tiny bit as an actor this past season,...

Following a premiere at BFI London Film Festival, where it was warmly received, we’re still not sure here in the U.S. when we’ll see the Wwi biographical drama Testament of Youth, but those in the U.K. will get it early next year, and today brings a new trailer. Led by rising star Alicia Vikander, she stars as Vera Brittain, […]...

While we wait for Captain Marvel and Wonder Woman to power up for big-screen outings, a different kind of heroine is making her way into our cinemas. She may not have a gold lasso or Kree powers, but Testament Of Youth's real-life heroine, Vera Brittain (Alicia Vikander), had guts, determination and a single-mindedness to make the best of her gifts as a writer. If you could fly, too, she’d be a cinch for the Avengers.The film’s new trailer provides a deeper context to her arc: the preconceptions of what a woman should and shouldn’t do in Edwardian society are the battleground she must negotiate before war comes and brings the real thing. Click on the YouTube link below for a look.Playing the young poet, diarist and nurse is Vikander, while Kit Harington plays her fiancé Roland Leighton. As the Great War rumbles over the horizon,...

A couple more reports from London and Chicago festivals heading your way. Here's David on three new films starring either Alicia Vikander or Mads Mikkelsen, who formerly sizzled together in Denmark's recent Oscar nominee "A Royal Affair" - Editor

Alicia Vikander

That Testament of Youth was made the Centrepiece Gala at the festival seems, sight unseen, predictable: supported by the Mayor of London, the Gala slot is one of the few that really demonstrates the festival's support of homegrown cinema, and the story told here is as British as you can get. 2014 marks the centenary of World War I, and with it comes this adaptation of Vera Brittain's iconic memoir. James Kent's film keeps his focus to the period of the war itself, beginning at its end; Vera (Alicia Vikander) looks oddly distraught amidst the celebrating crowds packing London's streets. Testament of Youth is a compassionate reminder of...

There was little fanfare, in large part because the filmmakers only had the final print ready a week before the festival. But the fact that BFI Lff head Clare Stewart had selected the film for one of her coveted headline gala slots – the ‘Centrepiece Gala’, no less – seemed promising. And so it proved, with “Testament Of Youth” turning out to be the festival’s genuine surprise, an intimate epic that’s old-fashioned in telling but searing in impact thanks to the potency of heartbreaking events – war laying waste to an entire generation – and the power of Vikander, who brings the intelligent, perceptive Vera to bright, vivid life. This is a British film that does many things exquisitely well, and benefits from a shining array of memorable supporting characters and performances. But from opening to closing credits, it’s Vikander’s face that rivets as our dignified guide on this painful emotional journey,...

Jon Snow takes some time away from The Wall for Testament of Youth, which sees Kit Harrington and Alicia Vikander as two young lovers whose pese lives are shatter and forever changed by the First World War. Based on the memoir of Vera Brittain, director James Kent (who made his name on television with the likes of The White Queen and Inside Men) has certainly captured the power of Brittain's writing, and has brought together an impressive supporting cast, including Dominic West and Emily Watson, backing up our young leads. Check to trailer out below. Released: 16th January 2015 (Irl/U.K.)...

Testament Of Youth is James Kent’s dramatisation of famed pacifist Vera Brittain’s earliest memoir. Starring Swedish actress Alicia Vikander as Brittain herself, the story chronicles her early years during World War I. It premiered at the London Film Festival last night, and we went along to meet the cast and crew and get the story.The film sees Vera left behind at home while her fiancé Roland (Kit Harington), her brother Edward (Taron Egerton) and friends Victor (Colin Morgan) and Geoffrey (Jonathan Bailey) all leave for France to fight for their country. Desperate to keep her loved ones safe, she leaves university to become a nurse on the Front, and it’s there that she comes to understand the true horrors of war.The cast were out in force on the red carpet to discuss the importance of this new adaptation. Talking to Empire, Merlin star Colin Morgan...

The First World War was one of the greatest, most terrible conflicts and losses of life in the history of humanity, but curiously, it's been relatively under-represented on screen, aside from a smattering of pictures like Oscar-winner "All Quiet On The Western Front," Stanley Kubrick's "Paths Of Glory," Peter Weir's "Gallipoli," and most recently, Steven Spielberg's "War Horse." Perhaps it's because it was less of a just war than its bigger sequel, perhaps it's that it was a particularly gruesome slog of mud and sacrifice, perhaps it was because America only entered the war three years in, but there's no doubt that the conflict has been seen in the movies much less than WWII, or even Vietnam. This year, however, marks one hundred years since the beginning of the war, and so it was inevitable that related movies would start to appear. The first out of the gates is "Testament Of Youth,...

The romance between Alicia Vikander and Kit Harington is at the center of the first poster (courtesy of Empire Online) for James Kent‘s Vera Brittain adaptation “Testament of Youth.” Based on the 1933 autobiography by Brittain, the Juliette Towhidi-scripted “Testament of Youth” is set against the backdrop of World War I and follows the early life of the renowned English pacifist (Vikander), who left her studies at Oxford University to enlist as a Voluntary Aid Detachment nurse in the armed forces — particularly in London, Malta and France — where her fiancé Roland Leighton (Harington), brother (Taron Egerton) and two [...]

The post First ‘Testament of Youth’ Poster Featuring Alicia Vikander and Kit Harington appeared first on Up and Comers.

The first volume of author Vera Brittain's memoirs, Testament Of Youth, focuses on her experiences in World War I and has become something of a classic of the wartime literary genre. Alicia Vikander and Kit Harington star in the film adaptation for James Kent, and we have the first poster here.Now if that isn't a classic pose that signals romantical problems in wartime, we don't know what is. There's the train station, the rushing crowd and the impossibly handsome young lovers - Vera herself (Vikander) and fiance Roland (Harington) about to be torn apart as he heads to the Front and she takes up her wartme work as a Voluntary Aid Detachment nurse working in England, France and Malta.Also starring are Taron Egerton as Brittain's brother Edward, who introduces the lovers; Dominic West and Emily Watson as her parents, and support from the likes of Hayley Atwell,...

There are 18 world premieres at this year's BFI London Film Festival, which is running for the next 12 days. They include "Testament Of Youth," a David Heyman-produced adaptation of Vera Brittain's World War II memoir starring Alicia Vikander and Kit Harington; "The Falling," set in an English girls school in 1969 rife with seething hormones and turbulent emotions -- the second narrative feature from British writer-director Carol Morley, whose quasi-documentary "Dreams Of A Life" was one of the most striking British films of 2012; and "Hockney," Randall Wright's documentary portrait of the English artist. Joining Morley as a distinctive new British female filmmaking voice is Corinna McFarlane, whose full-blooded romantic drama "The Silent Storm" will also premiere at the BFI Lff. Executive produced by Bond-maker Barbara Broccoli and starring Damian Lewis as a wrathful minister on a remote, pre-World War II Scottish island, Andrea...

The film starring Michael Keaton to receive a simultaneous UK premiere with the Brighton Film Festival.

The 28th Leeds International Film Festival (Nov 5-20) is to close with Alejandro González Iñárritu’s Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) as a unique joint UK premiere with Brighton’s CineCity film festival, which will open with the film on the same date, Nov 20.

The black comedy, which debuted at Venice in August, stars Michael Keaton as a washed-up actor who once played an iconic superhero and must overcome his ego and family trouble as he mounts a Broadway play in a bid to reclaim his past glory. Co-stars include Edward Norton, Emma Stone, Naomi Watts, Zach Galifianakis and Andrea Riseborough

Speaking of the joint premiere, Liff director Chris Fell said: “Regional film festivals like Liff and Cinecity are working together increasingly to grow the UK audience for films, both with and without distribution, and the joint...

Exclusive: Catch Me Daddy, X+Y also among locally-shot films at the festival.

The 28th Leeds International Film Festival (Nov 5 -20) will open with period drama Testament of Youth, which leads the festival’s biggest line-up of films produced in Yorkshire.

Backed by Screen Yorkshire and filmed primarily in the region, the adaptation of Vera Brittain’s iconic First World War memoir stars Alicia Vikander, Kit Harington, Dominic West and Emily Watson.

Other backers on the James Kent-directed drama include BBC Films, BFI, Ingenious, Nordisk Film Production and LipSync. David Heyman and Rosie Alison produce for Heyday Films.

Cannes selection Catch Me Daddy and Toronto hit X+Y, both backed by Screen Yorkshire’s Yorkshire Content Fund, will also screen at the festival.

LIFF28’s opening night will showcase a double bill of Yorkshire-shot films with the world premiere of The Taking in the festival’s Fanomenon horror and cult film strand. The thriller...

War drama stars Alicia Vikander and Game of Thrones star Kit Harington.

Testament of Youth, the First World War drama based on the memoir of Vera Brittain, is to be released in the UK by Lionsgate on Jan 16, 2015.

The release will follow its world premiere at the BFI London Film Festival on Oct 14.

Directed by James Kent with a screenplay from Juliette Towhidi, the film stars Alicia Vikander as a British woman who recalls her experiences during the First World War.

Co-stars include Game of Thrones star Kit Harington as well as Taron Egerton, Colin Morgan, Dominic West, Emily Watson, Hayley Atwell, Miranda Richardson, Anna Chancellor, Nicholas Le Prevost and Joanna Scanlan

Producers are David Heyman and Rosie Alison of Heyday Films, the production company behind the Harry Potter franchise, Gravity and the upcoming Paddington.

Executive producers are Christine Langan and Joe Oppenheimer for BBC Films, Richard Mansell, Zygi Kamasa for Lionsgate UK and Hugo Heppell for Screen Yorkshire...

Want to know what British films are coming out this month? Then look no further than our fabulous movie calendar...

Welcome to our new, regularly updated calendar of all the British movies due for release in UK cinemas over the coming months. So if you're keen to keep up-to-date on the latest in home grown cinema - from documentaries to dramas, and comedy horror to science fiction - this is the ideal post for you. 

So here's what's coming up in the future. 

12 September 2014

Pride

Director: Matthew Warchus

Cast: Bill Nighy, Dominic West, Andrew Scott

Details: A drama about a group of gay and lesbian activists donating to people in need during the 1984 miners' strike.

Jack To A King - The Swansea Story

Director: Marc Evans

Cast: Tbc

Details: A documentary about Swansea football fans.

19 September 2014

Night Will Fall

Director: Andre Singer

Cast: Alfred Hitchcock, Sidney Bernstein

Details: A documentary...

Fury (David Ayer)

[via the BFI]

The programme for the 58th BFI London Film Festival launched today, with Festival Director Clare Stewart presenting this year’s rich and diverse selection of films and events. The lineup includes highly anticipated fall titles including David Ayer’s Fury, Bennett Miller’s Foxcatcher, the Sundance smash Whiplash, Jean-Luc Godard’s Goodbye to Language 3D, The Imitation Game starring Benedict Cumberbatch, Mike Leigh’s Mr. Turner, Jason Reitman’s Men, Women and Children and Jean-Marc Vallee’s Wild.

As Britain’s leading film event and one of the world’s oldest film festivals, it introduces the finest new British and international films to an expanding London and UK-wide audience, offering a compelling combination of red carpet glamour, engaged audiences and vibrant exchange. The Festival provides an essential profiling opportunity for films seeking global success at the start of the Awards season, promotes the careers of British and...

This year's BFI London Film Festival kicks off on October 8 with Alan Turing drama The Imitation Game and finishes on October 19 with David Ayers' tank drama Fury. But what about the days inbetween? Well the full line-up, featuring 245 features and 148 shorts, has now been announced and there are some very tasty films to see.Among the gala screenings, we can expect to see quite a few probable Oscar contenders. Foxcatcher, the wrestling drama from Bennet Miller, will be there, as will Jason Reitman's Men, Women & Children; Mike Leigh's Mr Turner; Sundance favourite Whiplash, with Miles Teller and Jk Simmons; the Reese Witherspoon-starring Wild; Vera Brittain story Testament Of Youth; and, from the archives, The Battles Of Coronel And Falkland Islands.Each strand of the programme also has a gala, including Jon Stewart's Rosewater, Alan Rickman's A Little Chaos, Xavier Dolan's Mommy and the...

The full programme for the 2014 BFI London Film Festival has been announced, featuring 248 feature-length films and 148 shorts.

Taking place from October 8-19, 2014, Lff will host the UK gala premiere of Damien Chazelle's critically-acclaimed drama Whiplash, starring Miles Teller as an ambitious jazz drummer and Jk Simmons as Terence Fletcher, his fearsome tutor.

Whiplash received widespread critical acclaim upon its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival earlier this year, also earning Sundance's top audience and grand jury awards.

Testament of Youth, based on Vera Brittain's World War I memoir of the same name, will also screen at the festival, starring Alicia Vikander as Brittain and Game of Thrones' Kit Harington as her fiancé Roland Leighton.

Further screenings include Mr Turner, starring Timothy Spall as famed artist J. M. W. Turner, Jennifer Lawrence and Bradley Cooper's Depression-era drama Serena, Simon Pegg's new comedy Kill Me Three Times,...

Kit Harington, better known as Jon Snow — he of the dour look on Game of Thrones — will star in the BBC Films production of Vera Brittain's memoir, Testament of Youth. Harington plays Brittain's (Alicia Vikander) love interest, Roland Leighton. She's a pacifist and feminist, and he's a young man who feels it's his duty to go fight the Germans in World War I. More important, though, in order to fit into early-1900 England, Harington had to shear off his lustrous mane and scruff. Don't worry though, guys! It's just acting! Jon Snow will grow his hair back out in time for winter.

A generation is lost to war in the first trailer for “A Testament of Youth,” based on the memoirs of pacifist Vera Brittain. Swedish actress Alicia Vikander plays Brittain in the movies, which chronicles her education at Oxford University and her romance with Roland Leighton, played by “Game of Thrones” star Kit Harington. Also read: Andy Samberg and Kit Harington to Headline HBO Tennis Mockumentary The budding romance is put to the test when Roland decides to enlist to fight as World War I breaks out. Vera herself is not left unscathed as she's forced to delay getting her degree in order.

Kit Harington is caught between a rock and a hard place in the Testament of Youth trailer — his fiancee, Vera Brittain (Alicia Vikander), and his duty to serve his country. The Game of Thrones actor stars as Brittain's beau, Roland Leighton, in BBC Films' World War I-set romantic drama. David Heyman is producing, and James Kent, who has helmed episodes of Starz's The White Queen, is directing. Testament of Youth, published in 1933, tells of how the author postponed her studies at Oxford to serve as a nurse in the Great War, during which she lost her fiance and brother. After the war, she tried to resume her

read more...

Alicia Vikander brings Vera Brittain‘s legacy to the big screen in the first trailer for James Kent‘s “Testament of Youth.” Based on the autobiography by Brittain, “Testament of Youth” centers on the early life of the renowned English pacifist. The first part of the trailer focuses on both her rebellion against the traditional norms for women of her time and her new romance with her soon to be fiancé, Roland Leighton (played by “Game of Thrones” star Kit Harington). However, it quickly transitions to the impending First World War, a time in which she left her mark in history by [...]

The post Watch: Alicia Vikander, Kit Harington in First ‘Testament of Youth’ Trailer appeared first on Up and Comers.

The Kit Harington-starring Testament of Youth has released its first trailer.

The Game of Thrones actor features opposite Alicia Vikander in the BBC Films period drama.

Directed by James Kent, the film is based on Vera Brittain's World War I memoir of the same name.

Vikander stars as Brittain as she struggles against the early 20th century's strict ideas of a 'woman's place'. She falls for Roland Leighton (Harington) only to find their lives torn asunder by the war.

Hayley Atwell, Taron Egerton, Colin Morgan, Dominic West, Emily Watson, Joanna Scanlan, Jonathan Bailey, Alexandra Roach and Anna Chancellor also feature in the film.

Testament of Youth will be released on January 2 in the UK. A Us release date is yet to be announced.

Even when he’s not playing Jon Snow, Kit Harington is blindly pledging his life to the greater good and engaging in a futile conflict.

Lionsgate just released the trailer for Testament of Youth, a World War I-set romantic drama based on the memoir of the same name by Vera Brittain (Alicia Vikander). Her account follows the lives of the “Lost Generation,” specifically those of her brother and her fiancé Roland Leighton (Kit Harington), both of whom enlisted.

Brittain was also a pioneering journalist in an age when few women could pursue the career, as well as one of the...

Here’s an under-the-radar film we’ve been keeping an eye on: “Testament Of Youth,” a BBC Films production of Vera Brittain’s Wwi memoir. The story follows Brittain, a young woman on track for an Oxford education who after losing both her fiancé and brother decides instead to go to the frontlines as a nurse. Alicia Vikander plays the iconic writer, feminist and pacifist Vera Brittain, and “Game Of Thrones” star Kit Harington plays Roland Leighton, her husband-to-be. The first trailer for the movie has arrived and it boasts a lot of across-the-pond talent. The all star cast includes Vikander (“A Royal Affair,” “Anna Karenina”), Harington (“Pompeii”), Taron Egerton (“The Secret Service”), Colin Morgan (“Doctor Who”), Dominic West (“300,” “The Wire”), Emily Watson (“The Book Thief”), Joanna Scanlan (“The Invisible Woman”), Hayley Atwell (“Captain America: The First Avenger”), Jonathan...

A Great War-era character piece celebrating one of the nation’s great unsung heroes, Testament Of Youth only starting shooting a few months ago. Surely, you’re saying, it can have a trailer already? Well, it can. And it does. And, through the magic of the internet, here it is. The 100th anniversary of that terrible conflict seems an apt time to (re)introduce Vera Brittain, played by Alicia Vikander, a pioneering journalist and, before that, a nurse tending to the wounded of the trenches in Étaples. Brittain was a ground-breaker in many ways. She defied the chauvinism of the times to head to Oxford and later pursue a career in journalism that was considered the exclusive domain of men. She also wrote the book from which the film takes its title, a great solace for those who lost loved ones in the war.Far from escaping the impact of conflict,...

Lionsgate have released the first trailer for Testament of Youth which is directed by James Kent and has an all-star cast including Alicia Vikander, Kit Harington, Taron Egerton, Colin Morgan, Dominic West, Emily Watson, Hayley Atwell, Miranda Richardson and Anna Chancellor. It’s set for release early 2015

Testament Of Youth is a searing story of love and war. Based on the classic First World War memoir, this is the incredible true story of one young woman’s struggle to survive the horrors of war, which robbed her of everyone and everything she held dear, but was ultimately unable to break her extraordinary spirit.

Vera Brittain, irrepressible, intelligent and free-minded, overcomes the prejudices of her family and hometown to win a scholarship to Oxford. With everything to live for, she falls in love with her brother’s close friend Roland Leighton as they go to University to pursue their literary dreams.

The Daily Mail has unveiled a new photo of Alicia Vikander and Kit Harington from James Kent‘s adaptation of “Testament of Youth.” Based on the autobiography of the same name that was praised by the Times Literary Supplement as a book that helped “both form and define the mood of its time”, “Testament of Youth” centers on the early life of the English pacifist Vera Brittain. Played by Vikander (as pictured), Vera left the University of Oxford in 1915 to enlist as a nurse in the armed services, serving in London, Malta and France. Harington, as seen embracing Vikander, plays [...]

The post New Still of Kit Harington and Alicia Vikander in ‘Testament of Youth’ appeared first on Up and Comers.

New feature, starring Maggie Smith, will reunite the team behind The History Boys. BBC Films to also produce crime drama City of Tiny Lights starring Riz Ahmed.

BBC Films has unveiled its upcoming slate ahead of Cannes, which highlights its ongoing strategy to develop new talent and bolster existing relationships with filmmakers.

The slate is headlined by The Lady In The Van, an adaptation of the memoir of playwright, screenwriter, actor and author Alan Bennett.

Reuniting the team behind The History Boys, BBC Films and Bennett will be joined by Nicholas Hytner who will direct. Kevin Loader, Damian Jones and Nicholas Hytner will produce.

Starring Maggie Smith and Alex Jennings as Bennett, The Lady In The Van is based on Bennett’s experiences with Miss Shepherd, a vagrant who parked her clapped out old dormobile in his drive and stayed for 15 years.

BBC Films also revealed that they will be producing City of Tiny Lights with Ado Yoshizaki Cassuto...