A FILM directed by a BAFTA award-winning former York school boy is tipped for success.

Bootham School old scholar, James Kent, has received a plethora of plaudits for his debut cinema film – the First World War epic Testament of Youth, based on the wartime memoir of the same name, written by Vera Brittain.

The film stars Alicia Vikander as Vera Brittain and Kit Harington as her fiancé Roland Leighton, with Dominic West as Mr Brittain and Emily Watson as Mrs Brittain.

The story follows the life of Vera, who postponed her studies at Oxford University during the First World War to serve as a voluntary aid detachment nurse in London, Malta and France, and later became a writer and a pacifist.

The Hollywood Reporter has described James' film as ‘an exemplar of all the best things about British films' and The Evening Standard, said ‘The Testament of Youth speaks a truly cinematic language'.

Parts of the film were shot on location in Yorkshire, and James said: "As a born Yorkshireman raised and educated in the county I can't tell you what pleasure it gave me to come home with 90 crew, 200 extras - and 20 actors in order to shoot Testament of Youth, a powerful reminder of what the First World War meant.

"I even knew the most beautiful spots for this searing love story and the rather less glamorous for the trenches. But Yorkshire did us proud."

He left Bootham School in 1981 and went on to read history at Oxford University. Amongst his TV work he has won a BAFTA for the BBC2 documentary film ‘Holocaust’.

Commenting on the success of its old boy, Bootham’s head teacher, Jonathan Taylor, said: “James has produced outstanding TV documentary work in some of the most difficult and challenging areas of the world. We would like to think that Bootham’s Quaker values may have had some small influence on his work, and of course we congratulate him on his latest film success.”

The film has a UK opening date of January 16 next year and its world premiere was at the British Film Institute London Film Festival in October.