About the film: Testament of Youth is a powerful story of love 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.
Differing from other dramas set in war time Testament of Youth is one females account of war through the eyes of love, courage, hope and loss.
About Vera Brittain: Vera was the daughter of a well-to-do family who owned paper mills in Hanley & Cheddleton. She had an uneventful childhood with her only brother her closest companion. Wanting to become a writer she studied English literature at Somerville College, Oxford. She delayed her degree in the summer of 1915 to work as a V.A.D.nurse for much of the first world war. Her fiancé Roland Leighton, two other close friends Victor Richardson and Geoffrey Thurlow, and her brother Edward Brittain all served during the war. This war was to bring inescapable horror and change into her life and shape the century dramatically.
Divided by war. United by Love.
4 STARS “A HUGELY STIRRING JUSTICE TO BRITTAIN’S LIFE’S WORK.” – THE TELEGRAPH
4 STARS “TRADITIONAL, HEARTFELT AND STIRRING IN ALL THE RIGHT WAYS” TIMES (UK)
Testament of Youth opens in NZ cinemas April 23.