Film / News
Watershed hosts Testament of Youth preview
Move over lucrative Michael Bay moron movies and fart gag comedies, it’s Awards Season. Hollywood is about to demonstrate its solemn commitment to Serious Drama for a month or so. And what could be more serious than a timely adaptation of Vera Brittain’s WWI memoir Testament of Youth, which previously spawned a 1979 TV mini-series?
TV director James (Marchlands, The White Queen) Kent makes his big screen debut, working from a script by Juliette Towhidi, who wrote Calendar Girls and recently adapted Cecilia Aherne’s Love, Rosie. Despite the obvious trappings of British Heritage Cinema, the film’s trump card is the casting of Swedish actress Alicia Vikander, who was so brilliant in A Royal Affair, as feisty proto-feminist Vera. Jon Snow himself (oh, OK, Kit Harington) plays her doomed love interest. Dominic West and Emily Watson are cast as Mr and Mrs Brittain – the first time they’ve worked together since the Fred’n’Rose West TV drama Appropriate Adult. Go here for our full review.
Testament of Youth opens nationwide on Fri 16 January. But you can catch a preview screening four days earlier at the Watershed. This event, on Mon 12 January, will be followed by a satellite Q&A with the cast and crew. The ‘shed also has a couple of additional events tying into its run of the film. On Tue 20 January, from 18:30-19:30, there’s a Twitter chat with Cinema Curator Mark Cosgrove and Tim Cole, Professor of Social History at the University of Bristol. Join in by using #convocinema. The following evening, Sarah Street, Professor of Film Studies at the University of Bristol, will introduce the 17:30 screening and host an informal conversation on the film in the Cafe/Bar from 20:10 onwards. For more information and to book tickets, go here
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