Bleecker Street has announced that it has acquired the U.S. rights to One Life, starring Academy Award®-winner Sir Anthony Hopkins, along with Johnny Flynn, Lena Olin, Romola Garai, Alex Sharp, Marthe Keller, with Academy Award®-nominated Jonathan Pryce and two-time Academy Award®-nominee Helena Bonham Carter. Directed by James Hawes (Black Mirror, Slow Horses) and written by Lucinda Coxon and Nick Drake, the See-Saw Films production, developed alongside BBC Film premiered last month at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF).
Bleecker Street plans on giving the film a 2024 theatrical release, but first, the film will screen at the BFI London Film Festival later this week.
Based on the book If It’s Not Impossible…: The Life of Sir Nicholas Winton by Barbara Winton, One Life tells the incredible, emotional true story of Nicholas ‘Nicky’ Winton (Flynn), a young London broker who visits Prague in December 1938. In a race against time, Winton convinces Trevor Chadwick (Sharp) and Doreen Warriner (Garai) of the British Committee for Refugees in Czechoslovakia to rescue as many children as possible before Nazi occupation closes the borders. Fifty years later, Nicky (Hopkins) is haunted by the fate of the children he wasn’t able to bring to safety in England. It’s not until the BBC show “That’s Life!” re-introduces him to some of those he helped rescue that he finally begins to come to terms with the guilt and grief he carried – all the while skyrocketing from anonymity to a national hero.
One Life was made with the support of BBC Film, and is a BBC Film and MBK Productions presentation, in association with Cross City Films, FilmNation Entertainment, and Lipsync. Producers are Joanna Laurie, Iain Canning, Emile Sherman, Guy Heeley. Simon Gillis, Eva Yates, Barbara Winton, Maria Logan, Anne Sheehan, and Peter Hampden executive produced. Kent Sanderson and Avy Eschenasy negotiated the deal on behalf of Bleecker Street with CAA Media Finance and Simon Gillis on behalf of See-Saw Films and Cross City Films. FilmNation Entertainment is handling international sales.
