THE DIRECTOR TALKS ABOUT THE MOVIE

In 1998 director Matej Mináč found a mention about the rescue of Czech children who were transported to England and brought up by adoptive parents in a book „Pearls of Childhood“ by Věra Gissingová. This story engrossed him so much that he primarily incorporated it to his feature film „All My Loved Ones“ whose screenplay was written by Jiří Hubač. The character of Nicholas Winton was portrayed by a renown British actor Rupert Graves. At the same time director Mináš began to work with editor Patrik Pašš and Martina Štolbová on a documentary dealing with this rescue mission.

„What would filmmakers give today if they would be able to make their documentary with Oscar Schindler or Raoul Wallenberg personally. Mr.Winton is the last living savior of such large number of people today. And for us filmmakers it was an obligation to depict this unique story as seen through his own eyes,“ said Matej Mináč 

For three years Mináč and his collaborators searched unique shots and photographs of the time of the rescue in the archives in Bohemia, Slovakia, USA, Great Britain, Israel, Germany and Austria. And they found real gems. For example in the US Federal Archives in Washington they found a shot from Prague from 1939 – parting of children and their parents before leaving and a shot directly with young Winton.

„In Czech National Archives we found the whole film containing shots of saved children in a Czech school in Wales during the war shot by renown Czech director Jiří Weiss. Mr.Weiss attended the film`s premiére in Los Angeles and said with humour: “If I knew that some of my shots would be used in a documentary about Mr.Winton I would shoot them much better”. What a surprise it was for us and Mr.Čáslavský from Czech National Film Archives when we found never before used material showing how “Winton`s Train” arrives to Liverpool Street Station in London and Winton`s children get off. The work on this documentary was a real detective story for me,” Mináč said.

During the work on the documentary we conatacted about 50 Winton`s children from all over the world. Amongst them there were world-known personalities like Joe Schlesinger (famous Canadian TV station CBC reporter) who acted as a narrator in the film, Karel Reisz – nestor of English filmmaking and director of “French Lieutenant`s Woman” with Meryl Streep and Jeremy Irons, writer Věra Gissingová, author of many books for children and bestselling „Pearls of Childhood“, or Hugo Marom – a renown airport architect and many others. 

Nicholas Winton`s story is a beautiful symbol of human solidarity, self-sacrifice and courage. It radiates hope that even in the hardest moments full of desperation a lot of good can be done.

The evidence are those 669 children whom Nicholas Winton rescued from certain death. He was able to recognize impending danger and in risky situation prepared their transports from Prague to Great Britain where they found safety and second home.

This extraordinary story of a seemingly common man is an inspiration for us all. It is an example of humanity and determination to help people in peril, and of exceptional modesty because until the end of the 80`s it was not known that several hundred children owe Nicholas Winton for their survival.