Nicky’s Family (Matej Minac, 2011): Slovakia/Czech Republic

Reviewed by Sofia Arnbom. Viewed at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival 2012.

Raw, emotional and inspiring. Those three words describes this movie the best way.

This documentary is about Sir Nicholas Winton, who today is 102 years old, organized the rescue of 669 Jewish Czech and Slovak children just before the World War II started. Winton did not speak of this event with anyone for more than half a century.

If his wife wouldn’t have found a scrapbook at the attic in a suitcase – this man’s exploit would have been forgotten. In the scrapbook Winton put all the letters, names, memories and work about these children he helped. Winton’s wife made his story world-known by giving it to a women in England who was interested in his work. She tried to contact all the children who was in the scrapbook. But today only 261 of the 669 rescued children are identified.

The documentary contains different thing. There are a lot of clips from the World War II and Hitler. These clips are in a cold blue shade. The clips of the rescued children from that time are in a warm brown color. Then there is interviews with Sir Nicholas himself and some of the identified children. In the movie there is also some actors playing a young Mr Winton showing how it all started. It started with a phonecall from Sir Wintons friend who had to stay home instead of going to a ski trip. He stayed home in his homecountry Czech republic because the world was soon to begin. Nicky got interested and went to Bratislava to help.

After the story got known all over the world Nicholas Winton was knighted by the Queen Elisabeth II.

The story of Sir Nicholas Winton is very emotional. The whole audience was crying. In the movie there are clips from thousands of children around the world who are going in his footsteps to change the world. They are collecting money to different natural disasters, people with handicaps or people in poor countries who need help. It is very touching how much one man can change the world. The most touching was when they talked about how the parents were more or less forced to send their children away on a train and not knowing how things would end up for them. It must have been heartbreaking sending the children away. But good they did, because most likley those children would have died.

The “family” of Sir Nicholas Winton has grown to almost 6000 children today. All of those people live today because of one man.

What makes this documentary so much better than others is because of the engagement with the action of relaying this history to children. Sir Winton is such an inspiring person. A quote he said in the movie was: “You don’t have to be a politician or billionaire to change the world. You just have to be ambitious.” Do as Sir Winton and change the world.