WinterFest 2024 Opening Night
Save one life, save the world entire. The true story of heroic British humanitarian Nicholas Winton who rescued 669 Jewish children.
Maidenhead, England, 1987. Nicholas Winton (Anthony Hopkins) has been conscripted by his wife to declutter their home in anticipation of their first grandchild. As he rifles through several decades worth of paperwork, he is overcome with emotion by the memory of the children not saved.
In 1938, Winton abandons his day job as a London stockbroker, compelled to join his friends assisting with the refugee crisis as thousands flee the Sudetenland for unoccupied Prague. Touring the dirty, makeshift camps, he is struck by the dismal reality that many, particularly the children, will not survive the upcoming winter. Winton and his colleagues undertake a ludicrous proposition: coordinating a mass transit of children from Prague through occupied country to foster families in London without funding and without the necessary visas. With assistance from his resourceful tough as nails mother (Helena Bonham Carter), the indefatigable group must enlist the press, navigate British bureaucracy, fundraise, and match children to foster families all in a race against time until the impending occupation.
Grounded by the extraordinary performance of Anthony Hopkins, One Life is a deeply affecting portrait of the “British Schindler,” a little known figure with a most extraordinary story.
Co-sponsored by Susan and Jay Mall