Big budget Holocaust movie filming moves out of UK after Covid red tape row

02 November 2023 , 19:41

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One Life stars Sir Anthony Hopkins and Helena Bonham Carter (Image: DAILY MIRROR)

A big-budget movie shoot showing children rescued from the Holocaust arriving in Britain had to be diverted from London to Prague – thanks to Network Rail.

Sir Anthony Hopkins and Helena Bonham Carter star in One Life, about Sir Nicholas Winton’s rescue of mostly Jewish children from Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia in the late 1930s. The Kindertransport train arrived at London Liverpool Street Station, where a statue of the operation now stands.

But movie bosses were forced to film scenes in Prague instead, because of the pandemic. Director James Hawes said: “All the train stuff is in Prague, sadly Liverpool Street wouldn’t give us permission. So we found a Czech station and then used effects to make it look like Liverpool Street.”

Sir Anthony Hopkins (DAILY MIRROR)

Network Rail told the Mirror: “This enquiry came in during the peak of the pandemic in the first months of 2021. Although we were managing smaller filming opportunities in line with government guidelines, this project required a crew and cast of hundreds. It also required the actors to remove their face coverings for filming.

“Needing four days in a train station while open to the public, it would not have been possible to accommodate the shoot and maintain safe distances to keep our passengers and staff safe.” The rail operator said later dates could have been possible, or a shoot with smaller film unit. Scenes set in the Home Office also had to be moved to the Czech capital.

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Director James added: “We were very careful to try and recreate it. I would love to have filmed in King Charles Street and down in Westminster but they wouldn’t allow us to do that. The irony is that that building was actually used by the Gestapo in the war. My producer cringed because the woodwork was all wrong. I wanted it to feel as authentic as possible.”

The film, due out in January, tells the story of British stockbroker Sir Nicholas, as told in his daughter Barbara’s biography. Barbara, who died last year, had stipulated that she wanted Sir Anthony to play the role of her father. He will be seen recreating a famous episode of the BBC ’s That’s Life in which the audience was made up entirely of people Sir Nicholas had saved, with Samantha Spiro playing host Dame Esther Rantzen. Sir Nicholas died in 2015, aged 106.

Ashleigh Rainbird