All My Loved Ones

As Hitler's influence spread and catastrophe loomed on the horizon for Europe's Jews, British stockbroker Nicholas Winton arranged for the safe transport of 669 children from Czechoslovakia to Britain. Director Matej Minac pays tribute to Winton in All My Loved Ones, a film set in Czechoslovakia during the final days before WWII. Though inspired by the experiences of Minac's own family, it is just as heavily influenced by Vittorio De Sica's The Garden Of The Finzi-Continis, another film in which a family takes too long to recognize evil's capacity to sweep away an entire way of life. Coming to that recognition here is the large and colorful Silberstein clan, which is headed by a well-liked doctor. Having just moved into a stately manor, purchased for a song from a friend who's taking an early opportunity to depart for America, the family watches as its liberties are chipped away bit by bit.