Glorious 39 is a psychological thriller centred on a British family just before the outbreak of the Second World War.

The film's world premiere was at the Toronto film festival on Monday night.

Glorious 39 is packed with important British thespians and was written and directed by Stephen Poliakoff.

It marks his return to the big screen after an absence of a decade, which he spent making award-winning movies for television.

Poliakoff brought some of his stellar Glorious 39 cast with him to a festival press conference yesterday: Bill Nighy, Romola Garai and the rarely seen screen icon, Julie Christie.

Glorious 39 concerns the appeasement faction in England before the war, or what Nighy described as, "A deeply shaming chapter in British history."

Those keen to avoid a second World War clung to Neville Chamberlain's "Peace in our time" statement and used everything at their disposal to silence those who would have Churchill as prime minister -- because that meant, among other things, war against Germany.

Glorious 39 concerns all the wire-tapping and dirty dealing that went on to maintain the status quo, with the story centred around one aristocratic family.

Julie Christie plays a matriarch role in the film as Aunt Elizabeth, a loving but demanding senior member of the family.

Romola Garai is the oldest daughter of the family and Bill Nighy plays her aristocratic father. As the story unfolds, Garai's character begins to feel alienated from family and friends.

"We all know a lot about the war itself but not much about the atmosphere and affiliations of England in the lead up to it," Christie said. "I think the subject is very interesting and very complex. What would any of us have done? I could present the case from both sides. The need for peace, and the need to not have happen what did happen -- that terrible war -- there's a very powerful argument for that. I have no idea what I would have done then. I'm anti-war. Of course, I knew that the aristocracy had been pro-appeasement."

Since Christie works so rarely, how is it she took this role?

"Stephen persuaded me to be in the movie. I never want to work. But he's a wonderful writer, and with him you know it's going to be interesting, correct and truthful."

At one point in the conference, Romolai Garai said she was happy to learn from her experienced co-actors in the film.

"I'm afraid I did sit down with Julie on our first scene together and tremulously did ask her about acting and her career and tried not to be too much of a pain," Garai said.

And if Christie responded to that as she usually does, she would probably have told Garai how much she hates the objectification of women in film and how hard she resists going to work. After accepting her first lead in a decade to star in Away From Her for director Sarah Polley two years ago, the actress said, "My work isn't what makes me happy. It makes me extremely unhappy, so I don't do much. What makes me happy are the people I love."

Luckily for the rest of us, some of the people she loves are involved in making movies.

Christie, who won an Oscar for her work in Darling and was nominated for another three Academy Awards, was a superstar who then turned her back on Hollywood at the height of her career. She lives in England and works mostly for various charitable and environmental causes.

When Christie was asked at the press conference what it meant to be considered a screen legend, she seemed amused. "It means I'm very, very old," she said.