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

Reviewed by Rosanna Lapinski. Viewed at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival.

Nicky’s Family is an impassioned and elevating documentary film that recounts the story of 29-year-old English stockbroker, Nicholas Winton, who orchestrates the relocation of 669 Czech children in the nine months preceding the outbreak of World War II. The film introduces Nicky’s Family—the people who owe their lives to Nicky and the generations that followed. Nicky’s charitable spirit motivates his “family” to continue acts of charity, and inspires all of us to contribute to our community by helping others.

The film is written and directed by Slovak filmmaker, Matej Minac. Nicky’s Family was screened as part of the KOLNOA Sidebar and introduced by Mashey Bernstein. The cast includes Nicholas Winton, his wife Grete, The Dalai Lama (as himself), Klara Issov, and Michal Slany. It is Minac’s third movie about Nicholas Winton.

Through Winton’s scrapbook, the film introduces the men and women, now living all over the world, saved by Winton. As these survivors relate their memories, archival photos, newsreel footage and melodramatic re-enactments tell the life stories of the rescued children, most of whom lost their entire families in the Holocaust. We learn that these people carried on to become scientists, engineers, teachers, entrepreneurs, politicians and writers. The film introduces Nicholas Winton, now 103 years old, and a very pleasant, modest fellow. Even at his advanced age, Winton is robust and still active in many charitable organizations.

Although considered a documentary, the film contains extensive “re-enactments” or dramatizations of historical events. In one heart-wrenching scene that takes place at a Czech train station, as the rescued children are about to depart for Britain, a tormented mother takes her small, sobbing child off the train to comfort her. Clutching the child tightly to her chest, yet knowing that keeping the child with her will almost certainly result in the child’s death, the young mother tearfully lifts her child through the open window and back onto the train. The young mother was movingly portrayed by Klára Issová, one of Czechoslovakia’s most well known actresses. We meet the grown-up child in the film as she is a member of Nicky’s Family.

Minac, a Slovak filmmaker, was inspired by the documentary, Winton’s Children, made by Esther Rantzen for BBC. Rantzen was the first to publicly reveal Winton’s war efforts on her television show, That’s Life!, where Winton was brought together with some of the children he had rescued prior to the war. Footage from the television show was used by Minac in Nicky’s Family. Minac’s earlier films include the feature film All My Loved Ones (1999)  the story of one boy rescued by Winton and the documentary Power of Good: Nicholas Winton (2001).

Nicholas Winton received a knighthood for his valiant actions that have provided inspiration to the generations that followed. This film will lift up your heart and fill you with a desire to help your fellow man.